6 ms·

Ask HN: How to get money for running a non-profit project?

62 points by apexkid 10y ago

I have created a non profit project for ease of governance. There is no business model. I do i scale it and keep it running? Any other options than donations?

smagch 10y ago
You could apply for Shuttleworth Foundation fellowship program that open the fellowship application twice a year. https://shuttleworthfoundation.org/ https://shuttleworthfoundation.org/
- Vinnl 10y ago
  SF projects should be about promoting openness though, so if "ease of governments" also means "making the government more transparent", that might be an option.
BillyParadise 10y ago
I'm in the process of doing this right now (we're in the 'fake news' space). Google is your friend, there are a multitude of resources out there for nonprofits. In terms of how to get going, here are a few useful links: First, a feasibility study: http://help4nonprofits.com/NP_START_IsItFeasible_Art.htm http://help4nonprofits.com/NP_START_IsItFeasible_Art.htm Next, a board: https://www.thebalance.com/importance-of-nonprofit-first-board-of-directors-2501804 https://www.thebalance.com/importance-of-nonprofit-first-boa...
- ykler 10y ago
  I'm working on a project that is related to fake news too. I'd be curious to learn a little more about what you are doing.
  - BillyParadise 10y ago
    Drop me an email, my username here at the big g mail co.
  - rwhitman 10y ago
    Ditto. I think there are a lot of people interested in the online disinformation problem at the moment.
milesrout 10y ago
Just make the project. This modern obsession that free software has to be 'funded' and 'governed' is absurd. Free software works far better when money is not a factor.
- arekkas 10y ago
  Sorry, but that sounds like you have never actually 'governed' an OSS.
  - milesrout 10y ago
    I assume you mean 'a free software project' rather than 'an OSS'. Well no, that's my point. Free software projects don't have governors, they have maintainers. They don't have non-profits and boards and diversity quotas and codes of conducts, they have mailing lists and BDFLs and coding standards and banhammers. This politicisation and corporatisation of free software is not good for free software.
    - lclarkmichalek 10y ago
      Free software has been a political statement from day zero.
      - milesrout 10y ago
        Only if you have an absurdly broad definition of politics.
        grzm 10y ago
        Stallman has been pretty clear on the political nature from early on. What gives you the impression that free software hasn't been political? Perhaps there's a difference in definition of free software. With GNU, and the Free Software Movement, the Free is definitely free as in freedom, which is a political concept. From the Free Software Movement: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html The four essential freedoms A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is nonfree. While we can distinguish various nonfree distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we consider them all equally unethical. From the GNU Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU Richard Stallman, the founder of the project, views GNU as a "technical means to a social end". Relatedly Lawrence Lessig states in his introduction to the 2nd edition of Stallman's book Free Software, Free Society that in it Stallman has written about "the social aspects of software and how Free Software can create community and social justice." That sounds pretty political to me.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cperciva 10y ago
There is no business model. Is there no business model, or is there no business model yet? As Google demonstrated, there are plenty of investors ready to invest in companies which have no clear business model providing that they're doing something which could theoretically be turned into a business eventually.
- apexkid 10y ago
  There is no business model as far i can see. The project is a catalog of government data aggregated together.
lathiat 10y ago
Would probably need more information about what your project is exactly and what your actual non profit status is, as it will change how easy it is to get various sources of income and your eligibility. Widely speaking, the three likely sources of income I can think of are (1) People - either donations / patronage, or in return for something - you'll likely have more success with this if you provide regular benefits or at least token value in return for them. (2) Grants from some community grant organisation, for example in Western Australia the Lotterywest lotto company gives out a large sum of grants as part of their license - but there may be other grant sources including private or government - eligibility will likely depend on your mission and actual status as a non profit and/or charity (these two things differ in Australia, no idea about other countries.. I think the US has some weird 3rd "public benefit" category) (3) Find a home under the umbrella of some other already funded organisation that takes additional projects under it's wing, things like the Apache Software Foundation, GNU, etc. (no guarantee you'll actually get funding, but it may be possible in some cases.. some foundations may help you out legally but not with funding). Grants are often hard work and come with various requirements, and are often even best case some chance of winning if you compete against others. And hard to maintain long term, so is more suited to short term. In most cases it is unlikely you'd get regular grants over time and there's definitely a time burn even if you can. Some kind of patronage or regular output getting donations from people generally is easier to have recurring but actually getting a notable number of patrons/donations on a regular basis is difficult. Often not too bad once established. Lastly a home under a foundation is likely difficult for a new project.. so in that case likely you'd need to self-fund until the point that may be possible. Hope that helps.
anc84 10y ago
It totally depends on the topic of your project and the finances needed. And what do you want to scale?
bruth 10y ago
Not a direct answer, but Max Ogden talked about that a bit on Changelog's RFC: https://changelog.com/rfc/6 https://changelog.com/rfc/6
sathishvj 10y ago
I can mention my own: http://www.littlecaution.org http://www.littlecaution.org I'm in the process of teaching the general public, including schools, colleges, the aged, etc. about remaining safe and secure on the internet. One of the engagements was when somebody I knew heard about it at a corporate and called me in to educate a large batch of new joinees from colleges. Next up: administrative staff in the office buildings and also employees. Though I'm funding it entirely from my own pocket now, based on the conversations I've had, I think companies will be willing to support it in the future - not to a level of profit, but to keep it running and so that I can pay experts for more their time and more content. I hope that will also cover the expenses when we do workshops at poorer schools and apartments and for senior citizens, where it is going to be entirely free for the attendees. I also added a bitcoin and ethereum donation address recently. I've got nothing from it yet, but maybe you can try that also.
- hluska 10y ago
  That's an excellent project - thanks for all your hard work!
- sathishvj 10y ago
  Somebody just sent in 0.01BTC. Yaaay! That's a first. Thank you!
- ahazred8ta 10y ago
  Running the project on donations IS a business model.
TamDenholm 10y ago
One option is to create a business model, run it like a business, a way of running a non-profit is to just spend all the revenue on the business' goal, rather than to pay the shareholders of the business. I think thats the most robust way to insure longevity of the enterprise. Relying on donations to keep the lights on is difficult.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > Relying on donations to keep the lights on is difficult. Can confirm - the Hackerspace I help run is in big part funded by company donations. Every now and then comes the day when I have to convince someone to keep donating, and since result depends mostly on the goodwill of the other party, we have to play safe with finances - which slows the growth and acquisition of new useful workshop tools. We're trying to move to self-sustainable model, but with almost everyone having a day job and/or a significant other, it's damn difficult.
  - arkitaip 10y ago
    What does growth mean in the context of a non-profit? Is it really a meaningful metric?
    - adrianN 10y ago
      Number of people using the service seems like a good metric.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      In the context of our space - more tools, more people coming to use those tools, learn and build awesome stuff. It is a meaningful metric because it's our whole raison d'être - providing free access to more and more advanced workshop for building stuff and learning new skills.
    - TallGuyShort 10y ago
      Everyone needs to measure success somehow, and increasing your performance against that metric (which is often linked with growth) is good. I worked with a non-profit for a while where each member was asked to track performance against goals. It was often repeated, "it's not about the numbers." No, it's about the people you're serving, but the numbers represent people and serving more people is better. What's wrong with trying to do that? It doesn't have to come at the expense of forgetting the people behind the numbers.
ComodoHacker 10y ago
Earn the money needed from other, for-profit project.
myf01d 10y ago
make some important project that other companies depend on in their projects and they will pay you to continue developing and maintaining it.
StreakyCobra 10y ago
This repository gives a nice overview of existing financing solutions with some pros/cons. It's oriented towards open source projects, but this doesn't mean it can't apply for other kind of projects. https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand
wastedhours 10y ago
Why not monetise in a traditional way? Non-profit doesn't mean non-revenue - just reinvest the profits a la Ghost for example.
golfer 10y ago
The Foundation Center is a fantastic organization dedicated to the education of non profit orgs and fundraising. They have a really nice library in NYC too. Lots of resources on these topics: http://foundationcenter.org/find-funding http://foundationcenter.org/find-funding
secfirstmd 10y ago
We run Security First as a non-profit.(https://www.secfirst.org https://www.secfirst.org). I also helped setup an UK charity called Videre (https://www.videreonline.org https://www.videreonline.org). It really depends on what you are doing. We build technology and training to help activists, journalists and people in high risk areas manage their security - through our free, open source mobile app, Umbrella. So we found and apply to funders who provide grants to help us build this. Public donations are actually quite a hard business model for non-profits as it really requires a huge amount of public visibility and work to keep them coming in. I recommend looking for grants first of all. I know the space pretty well so feel free to drop me a mail to the email in my profile and I'm happy to share some thoughts!
- apexkid 10y ago
  Will like to talk more about it. Can you please share your email.
  - secfirstmd 10y ago
    Cool, click on my username in HN and it's in there.
hluska 10y ago
Honestly, treat a non-profit just like a for profit. Way too many non-profits rely on a hodge podge mix of grants and donations. These non-profits have incredible trouble scaling because they can never rely upon any sort of cash flow. If you treat a non-profit like a business and figure out a recurring revenue stream, you will be way ahead of the game. And, as an added bonus, much like in the for profit world, once your non-profit shows that it can sustain itself indefinitely, you'll have people/foundations/other organizations coming out of the woodwork to fund you!!
zer00eyz 10y ago
In the USA just because your a non profit doesn't mean you cannot charge money for your product. As an example, there are lots of non profit hospitals that charge for a product but don't seek to make a profit. Would people pay for your product?
- whitten 10y ago
  To my knowledge, the number of non-profit hospitals is definitely getting smaller. This can affect the amount of indigent care significantly. I've heard of for-profit hospitals that cut maternity/OB-GYN services because the number of non-paying patients giving birth cut into their bottom line significantly.

62 points by apexkid 10y ago

I have created a non profit project for ease of governance. There is no business model. I do i scale it and keep it running? Any other options than donations?

smagch 10y ago

You could apply for Shuttleworth Foundation fellowship program that open the fellowship application twice a year. https://shuttleworthfoundation.org/ https://shuttleworthfoundation.org/

Vinnl 10y ago
SF projects should be about promoting openness though, so if "ease of governments" also means "making the government more transparent", that might be an option.

BillyParadise 10y ago

I'm in the process of doing this right now (we're in the 'fake news' space). Google is your friend, there are a multitude of resources out there for nonprofits. In terms of how to get going, here are a few useful links: First, a feasibility study: http://help4nonprofits.com/NP_START_IsItFeasible_Art.htm http://help4nonprofits.com/NP_START_IsItFeasible_Art.htm Next, a board: https://www.thebalance.com/importance-of-nonprofit-first-board-of-directors-2501804 https://www.thebalance.com/importance-of-nonprofit-first-boa...

ykler 10y ago
I'm working on a project that is related to fake news too. I'd be curious to learn a little more about what you are doing.
- BillyParadise 10y ago
  Drop me an email, my username here at the big g mail co.
- rwhitman 10y ago
  Ditto. I think there are a lot of people interested in the online disinformation problem at the moment.

milesrout 10y ago

Just make the project. This modern obsession that free software has to be 'funded' and 'governed' is absurd. Free software works far better when money is not a factor.

arekkas 10y ago
Sorry, but that sounds like you have never actually 'governed' an OSS.
- milesrout 10y ago
  I assume you mean 'a free software project' rather than 'an OSS'. Well no, that's my point. Free software projects don't have governors, they have maintainers. They don't have non-profits and boards and diversity quotas and codes of conducts, they have mailing lists and BDFLs and coding standards and banhammers. This politicisation and corporatisation of free software is not good for free software.
  - lclarkmichalek 10y ago
    Free software has been a political statement from day zero.
    - milesrout 10y ago
      Only if you have an absurdly broad definition of politics.
      - grzm 10y ago
        Stallman has been pretty clear on the political nature from early on. What gives you the impression that free software hasn't been political? Perhaps there's a difference in definition of free software. With GNU, and the Free Software Movement, the Free is definitely free as in freedom, which is a political concept. From the Free Software Movement: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html The four essential freedoms A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. A program is free software if it gives users adequately all of these freedoms. Otherwise, it is nonfree. While we can distinguish various nonfree distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we consider them all equally unethical. From the GNU Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU Richard Stallman, the founder of the project, views GNU as a "technical means to a social end". Relatedly Lawrence Lessig states in his introduction to the 2nd edition of Stallman's book Free Software, Free Society that in it Stallman has written about "the social aspects of software and how Free Software can create community and social justice." That sounds pretty political to me.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

cperciva 10y ago

There is no business model. Is there no business model, or is there no business model yet? As Google demonstrated, there are plenty of investors ready to invest in companies which have no clear business model providing that they're doing something which could theoretically be turned into a business eventually.

apexkid 10y ago
There is no business model as far i can see. The project is a catalog of government data aggregated together.

lathiat 10y ago

Would probably need more information about what your project is exactly and what your actual non profit status is, as it will change how easy it is to get various sources of income and your eligibility. Widely speaking, the three likely sources of income I can think of are (1) People - either donations / patronage, or in return for something - you'll likely have more success with this if you provide regular benefits or at least token value in return for them. (2) Grants from some community grant organisation, for example in Western Australia the Lotterywest lotto company gives out a large sum of grants as part of their license - but there may be other grant sources including private or government - eligibility will likely depend on your mission and actual status as a non profit and/or charity (these two things differ in Australia, no idea about other countries.. I think the US has some weird 3rd "public benefit" category) (3) Find a home under the umbrella of some other already funded organisation that takes additional projects under it's wing, things like the Apache Software Foundation, GNU, etc. (no guarantee you'll actually get funding, but it may be possible in some cases.. some foundations may help you out legally but not with funding). Grants are often hard work and come with various requirements, and are often even best case some chance of winning if you compete against others. And hard to maintain long term, so is more suited to short term. In most cases it is unlikely you'd get regular grants over time and there's definitely a time burn even if you can. Some kind of patronage or regular output getting donations from people generally is easier to have recurring but actually getting a notable number of patrons/donations on a regular basis is difficult. Often not too bad once established. Lastly a home under a foundation is likely difficult for a new project.. so in that case likely you'd need to self-fund until the point that may be possible. Hope that helps.

anc84 10y ago

It totally depends on the topic of your project and the finances needed. And what do you want to scale?

bruth 10y ago

Not a direct answer, but Max Ogden talked about that a bit on Changelog's RFC: https://changelog.com/rfc/6 https://changelog.com/rfc/6

sathishvj 10y ago

I can mention my own: http://www.littlecaution.org http://www.littlecaution.org I'm in the process of teaching the general public, including schools, colleges, the aged, etc. about remaining safe and secure on the internet. One of the engagements was when somebody I knew heard about it at a corporate and called me in to educate a large batch of new joinees from colleges. Next up: administrative staff in the office buildings and also employees. Though I'm funding it entirely from my own pocket now, based on the conversations I've had, I think companies will be willing to support it in the future - not to a level of profit, but to keep it running and so that I can pay experts for more their time and more content. I hope that will also cover the expenses when we do workshops at poorer schools and apartments and for senior citizens, where it is going to be entirely free for the attendees. I also added a bitcoin and ethereum donation address recently. I've got nothing from it yet, but maybe you can try that also.

hluska 10y ago
That's an excellent project - thanks for all your hard work!
sathishvj 10y ago
Somebody just sent in 0.01BTC. Yaaay! That's a first. Thank you!
ahazred8ta 10y ago
Running the project on donations IS a business model.

TamDenholm 10y ago

One option is to create a business model, run it like a business, a way of running a non-profit is to just spend all the revenue on the business' goal, rather than to pay the shareholders of the business. I think thats the most robust way to insure longevity of the enterprise. Relying on donations to keep the lights on is difficult.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> Relying on donations to keep the lights on is difficult. Can confirm - the Hackerspace I help run is in big part funded by company donations. Every now and then comes the day when I have to convince someone to keep donating, and since result depends mostly on the goodwill of the other party, we have to play safe with finances - which slows the growth and acquisition of new useful workshop tools. We're trying to move to self-sustainable model, but with almost everyone having a day job and/or a significant other, it's damn difficult.
- arkitaip 10y ago
  What does growth mean in the context of a non-profit? Is it really a meaningful metric?
  - adrianN 10y ago
    Number of people using the service seems like a good metric.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    In the context of our space - more tools, more people coming to use those tools, learn and build awesome stuff. It is a meaningful metric because it's our whole raison d'être - providing free access to more and more advanced workshop for building stuff and learning new skills.
  - TallGuyShort 10y ago
    Everyone needs to measure success somehow, and increasing your performance against that metric (which is often linked with growth) is good. I worked with a non-profit for a while where each member was asked to track performance against goals. It was often repeated, "it's not about the numbers." No, it's about the people you're serving, but the numbers represent people and serving more people is better. What's wrong with trying to do that? It doesn't have to come at the expense of forgetting the people behind the numbers.

ComodoHacker 10y ago

Earn the money needed from other, for-profit project.

myf01d 10y ago

make some important project that other companies depend on in their projects and they will pay you to continue developing and maintaining it.

StreakyCobra 10y ago

This repository gives a nice overview of existing financing solutions with some pros/cons. It's oriented towards open source projects, but this doesn't mean it can't apply for other kind of projects. https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand https://github.com/nayafia/lemonade-stand

wastedhours 10y ago

Why not monetise in a traditional way? Non-profit doesn't mean non-revenue - just reinvest the profits a la Ghost for example.

golfer 10y ago

The Foundation Center is a fantastic organization dedicated to the education of non profit orgs and fundraising. They have a really nice library in NYC too. Lots of resources on these topics: http://foundationcenter.org/find-funding http://foundationcenter.org/find-funding

secfirstmd 10y ago

We run Security First as a non-profit.(https://www.secfirst.org https://www.secfirst.org). I also helped setup an UK charity called Videre (https://www.videreonline.org https://www.videreonline.org). It really depends on what you are doing. We build technology and training to help activists, journalists and people in high risk areas manage their security - through our free, open source mobile app, Umbrella. So we found and apply to funders who provide grants to help us build this. Public donations are actually quite a hard business model for non-profits as it really requires a huge amount of public visibility and work to keep them coming in. I recommend looking for grants first of all. I know the space pretty well so feel free to drop me a mail to the email in my profile and I'm happy to share some thoughts!

apexkid 10y ago
Will like to talk more about it. Can you please share your email.
- secfirstmd 10y ago
  Cool, click on my username in HN and it's in there.

hluska 10y ago

Honestly, treat a non-profit just like a for profit. Way too many non-profits rely on a hodge podge mix of grants and donations. These non-profits have incredible trouble scaling because they can never rely upon any sort of cash flow. If you treat a non-profit like a business and figure out a recurring revenue stream, you will be way ahead of the game. And, as an added bonus, much like in the for profit world, once your non-profit shows that it can sustain itself indefinitely, you'll have people/foundations/other organizations coming out of the woodwork to fund you!!

zer00eyz 10y ago

In the USA just because your a non profit doesn't mean you cannot charge money for your product. As an example, there are lots of non profit hospitals that charge for a product but don't seek to make a profit. Would people pay for your product?

whitten 10y ago
To my knowledge, the number of non-profit hospitals is definitely getting smaller. This can affect the amount of indigent care significantly. I've heard of for-profit hospitals that cut maternity/OB-GYN services because the number of non-paying patients giving birth cut into their bottom line significantly.