Where We’ve Been

Just a quick summary of what I’ve done up to now, for anyone who’s thinking of starting up a nonprofit themselves. Mostly, it’s been a whole lot of talking to people. I started thinking seriously about the idea of creating a nonprofit devoted to reviews and info about nonprofit software late last year. I started talking to some friends and colleagues in the nonprofit sector, and the more people I talked to, the more it seemed like not just a good idea, but a viable one – not just really useful to nonprofits, but perhaps achievable. So I started reaching out more, to those folks doing affiliated things, or those I thought would have opinions or thoughts – consultants and nonprofit and vendors I only knew in passing, or even some people I didn’t know at all.

In the meantime, I was doing some detailed planning - figuring out how things would work, running the numbers, writing a concept paper to share. As more and more people – including some of the key folks in the nonprofit technology field - were interested in the idea, and willing to help, I started to really believe that it could happen. I conducted a survey of nonprofit folks to see what the state of their software is, and – a key question for me – to see if they’d be willing to pay to access a resource like this.

That brings us up to the present. There’s still a really long way to go, of course. I’m currently working on a number of fronts at once. In the very short term, I’m using the publication of my survey report as a kind of public “launch” of Idealware – I’m putting up a little website for it. I’m creating a proof-of-concept report on online donation tools – a detailed roundup of tools with ways to compare them, and recommendations. I’m working on my legal/ nonprofit status, with the current hope of working with a fiscal sponsor. And I’m continuing to plan – in particular, I’m thinking in detail through ways of generating income to be able to sustain Idealware in the long run.