Moving slowly...

 

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot."

-Michael Altshuler

Seriously, where is the time going?  It's almost November.  So much for my plan to provide regular updates on the non-profit start-up process.  How do people have the discipline to sit down and write/edit a blog on a regular basis?  I am too easily distracted by…well, everything: I should sit down and write a blog post tonight, oh wait, the cat wants to play.  OK, now I really should sit down and write, oh, but I think I should do laundry so I can have warm sheets when I go to bed.  Alright, sit down and write…let me just check my email…. 

OT Students Rock

I was finally spurred into action when I found out that an OT student (hi Biz!) will be working with me and the organization for her doctoral capstone project next year. Yay!  In the spring, we’ll figure out more specifically what her project will be with us, but I’m so excited to have another student on board to offer new ideas and perspectives!

I have another OT capstone student, Henry, who will be joining me in January. For his capstone, he’ll be helping to get the rollator repair project up and going. A lot of the folks we work with use rollators for their community mobility so they endure a lot of wear and tear.  Unfortunately, insurance will only provide this type of equipment once every five years (if at all) and they regularly wear out before then, leaving folks them with unsafe (and sometimes unusable) equipment because the cost of replacing parts like wheels and brakes can be prohibitively expensive for low-income folks.  I’ve been informally doing these types of repairs on my own (often paying for parts of out pocket) so I’m excited to have Henry to help me formalize the service. 

OT students repairng a rollator at a Richmond Health and Wellness Program event

I’m also really excited that I have another OT student who has agreed to join our board of directors! Lauryn Helstrom is going to serve as our secretary and also help with student volunteer recruitment.  A big part of what the organization hopes to do is to offer intergenerational activities so I felt it was important to have the perspective of younger generations on the board.  We’re currently having fun learning Robert’s Rules of Order and the formal procedure for taking board meeting minutes. We’re hoping to have our first formal board meeting by the end of the year in order to approve the bylaws and 2023 budget so we can actually get going on programming…

We're Official!

Which brings us to the point of this post: updates on the status of the organization. Things are moving forward, though oftentimes slower than I had hoped and anticipated. We have an official name, Richmond Aging and Engaging, and logo:  

We have a domain name and organizational email address (@agingandengaging.org) and eventually a webpage (www.agingandengaging.org), and we have a mission statement:

The mission of Richmond Aging and Engaging is to support the health, wellness, and quality of life of older adults aging-in-place in low-income housing. Through creative, educational, and fitness programming, and opportunities for volunteer service, we ensure access to meaningful activities that foster a sense of purpose, build social connections, and empower older adults to live their best life.

We are officially registered as a non-stock corporation in Virginia and have an EIN. With our attorney, we’re working on some of the required legal/business documents like the by-laws which will govern the organization and how it is run. He’s also helping to put together the application to request tax-exempt status (501(c)(3)) from the IRS.

The business of business

Understanding the business side of things has been a HUGE learning curve and has taken up much of my time the past couple months. Fortunately, there are a lot of good resources out there for learning the business-side of running a non-profit (see below for a list of some I’ve used and recommend). I’ve had to dig into the deepest depth of my memories to recall the accounting courses I took 15 years ago only to realize that nonprofit accounting is really different than standard business accounting…so I’ve had to learn/re-learn about fund accounting and creating a chart of accounts and budget projections and FASB accounting standards and financial control policies…and why they heck do nonprofits have different names for standard financial reports (e.g. an “Income Statement” for for-profit corporations is called a “Statement of Activities” for not-for-profit corporations). Eventually (once we actually have some money coming in) we’ll have to bring on a bookkeeper and accountant to ensure our finances are being well managed, and we’re hoping in the next year to recruit a board member with a financial background …but until then, it will just be me and an excel spreadsheet (until we get 501(c)(3) status which opens many doors for discounted software, we can’t afford the monthly fees for accounting software like Quickbooks).

Finally the fun stuff

The plan is to (hopefully) have the basic business infrastructure in place by the end of the year and I’m excited to shift my focus from the business side of things to actual programming!  In the moments between budget projecting and board policy development, I met with numerous local nonprofit organizations. One of the things I learned from these meetings is that most senior-focused programming is developed from the top down:  organizations decide on the programming that they think participants need/want.  Richmond Aging and Engaging is going to take a different approach and include participants in the programming process – from idea generation to volunteering to run the programs.  During my meetings I also identified the initial sites where we will do our pilot programming (two low-income senior apartment buildings in the East End of Richmond). One of the first things we’re going to do after the holidays is to hold monthly advisory committee meetings at each building where interested participants can meet to discuss their interests, we can bounce our programming ideas by them, and ultimately collaborate on program design and implementation.

While the long-term plan is to implement programming in collaboration with the participants, that process requires time and we need to get in the buildings and do “something” as a starting point and to start building relationships.  This “something” is going to be the Opening Minds through Art (OMA) program.  OMA was developed for people with dementia living in nursing homes but can be (and has been) adapted for any population.  From their website: “Its failure-free program provides opportunities for creative self-expression and social engagement for people with dementia. OMA also provides volunteers with opportunities to improve their attitudes toward aging through the weekly interaction with OMA program participants.”  

Check out this video from an organization in Boston that was one of the first to implement OMA in a non-dementia population:

I was trained to facilitate OMA pre-COVID so I’m looking forward to finally being able to implement it.  If you’ve made it this far and are still reading this – get excited!  I’m going to need lots of people to help with this program- from making sample art to working with participants to helping with the final art show!  Stay tuned after the holidays as we start getting things scheduled!

So, that's where we are now. We're moving slowly, but at least we're moving!

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For those that are interested, resources I’ve used to learn about the business-side of starting and running a non-profit:

1. Nonprofit Leadership Lab:  There is an annual fee to join the NLL, but it has been money well spent. In addition to the numerous courses and master classes offered on all aspects of nonprofit work, it also provides an informal community of nonprofit leaders where we can ask questions and share information – this has been an invaluable resource.
2. nonprofitready.org: provides an extensive database of free videos, courses, and materials for non-profits
3. Richmond SCORE: provides free personal mentorship and low-cost seminars on business topics – some specific to nonprofits.