Starting a charity & providing services through my business; anyone else done this?

[tankman1989]

I am wondering how many of you either run charities or do work for charities. I feel that there is a major need for a specific type of charitable organization in my area, basically a safety and awareness organization, which will hopefully replace the spot the local school districts have left void due to budget costs. Just so everyone knows this charity is absolutely non controversial and in no way can bring bad light to my business as long as it is run properly and legitimately. It is non partisan and non religious, purely civic and social safety matters.

Now starting this charity is going to be somewhat costly and I am going to be footing the entire bill. THIS is going to be taken out of my advertising budget as there is no other place from which to draw funds.

I am also going to be utilizing my IT business to create the charity's web site, manage email addresses, send out mailers, host the site, etc. This will be paid for out of my business and I would like it to be recognized as such when materials are printed, the website hosted etc. Does anyone see any problems with this? I would like to have a way for local businesses to attain key points of prominence within the site for advertising, which would be based upon their donation rate.

[TopLevelComp]

I wouldn't do it. Too much money to be lost if it's not successful.

[numnutz]

I do not run any charities but I do support several school and town charities in my area. I have donated custom built computers to school and town clubs ie safe driving, senior class, honors society, town rec department. They raffel them off and raise money for specific things. I get kudos and advertising from it and have made several customers from it. However it is charity and any money and time spent is done without any expectation of a reward, financially or other. Sounds like you want to do something really great and helpful. Good luck with it!

[callthatgirl]

Yes and No.

Yes, I started a pro bono project in 2008 that helped 100's if not 1000's of laid off people when the recession hit. Little did I know when I started the project that it would get published as national story via the press and really helped market my business underground. Nine months later, after I gave blood sweat and tears...the payoff happened. Since 2009, I have over 350 clients from LinkedIn due to the pro bono help I gave when

a.) I had time to help
b.) people needed my knowledge

No, it wasn't a full blown charity/NP/501c. It was just a helping hand effort, but we could have went full blown 501c, but once I started doing free LinkedIn classes to teach the unemployed how to use LinkedIn for networking to their next job, every Tom, Dick and Harry became a LinkedIn "Expert" and charged for classes, minimizing my pro bono effort and we closed shop in the summer of 2009.

Sounds like you have extra time on your hands and it also appears you a busy minded guy. I would say if you looking for ways to spend your time, I would put it into online marketing and forget the charity.

2 parts.

1.) If you have extra time right now, go volunteer, don't waste time on starting a charity. Too much book work and you need a board of directors and tons of other legal eagle crap.

2.) When you are running a successful business and have the extra money, put it towards sponsoring a charity with events and good write offs.

I see no reason why you would have time to do this, market your business and make YOURSELF more money.

Just my thoughts,

[Paul Rodgers]

Don't start a charity. Donate money and time as your business.

Work with true charitable organizations.

[TimJacobs]

I donate my time to FCCM (Faith Center Computer Ministries). They buy, build and repair PC's for the folks that can't afford them. They also teach beginning computer classes.

So about 6 hours a week that's what I do.