How to use this
Everything below you can do yourself. It is written as two sittings of about forty five minutes because that is how long each part actually takes, and because the second one works better after you have lived with the first for a couple of weeks.
The order matters more than the speed. The first sitting is about who you are: your organization, your formation paperwork, and the people around you. The second is about what you do. Founders who go the other way round usually end up redoing the first part anyway.
Before you start, have these where you can reach them: your organization's legal name and address, the date you were formed, your EIN if you have one, your logo, whatever formation paperwork you already have, and a list of your board members and volunteers with their email addresses.
The first sitting
By the end of this, your organization exists properly in the platform, your formation work has a home, and the people around you are in it.
- My Organization. Your legal name, address, time zone, contact email and phone, and the IRS classification you chose when you enrolled. Add your logo and set your colors while you are here; it takes two minutes and it changes how the whole thing feels. If you left the EIN blank, you will see a walkthrough for getting one. Your six months are already running either way, so do not stop and wait on it.
- Nonprofit Formation. This is where your articles, your bylaws and your Form 1023 work live. Open it, see what it asks for, and put in what you already have. You are not trying to finish it today. The job today is knowing where it is, what it still wants from you, and how to come back to it in twenty minute pieces, because that is how this actually gets done.
- Your board and your volunteers. Add your board members and your volunteers, and give each person the access that matches what they do. The Launch Plan holds up to 250 contacts and one other administrator besides you. If you already keep a list in a spreadsheet, import it. If you do not, add three people by hand so you have done it once and know where it lives.
- The dates that arrive by themselves. Look at your calendar and check that what is already on it is right. Your Form 990 and your state charitable registration show up on their own, so you will not have to remember them.
Three things to do this week
Small enough to actually finish, and the second sitting assumes you have tried them.
- Finish your list of board members and volunteers.
- Go back into Nonprofit Formation once and complete one more section. Once, not for an evening.
- Put the formation documents you already have, your articles and your bylaws, where your board can find them.
The second sitting, two to three weeks later
By the end of this, your board has somewhere to meet, one thing is bringing people or money in, and you know what happens at the end of your six months.
- Fix what got stuck. Start with whatever did not work. That is the real agenda, and if nothing went wrong, you are further along than most.
- Your first board meeting. Create the next meeting with its date, put the agenda on it, and make sure your board can reach the documents you filed away. This is the step almost everybody skips alone, and it is the one people are most glad they did.
- Your first thing that brings people or money in. Pick one: take a donation, run an event, or collect dues. Build that one all the way to finished. One thing that works beats three that are half done, and the second one is much faster once you have seen how the first went together.
- What happens at the end. Your free months end on a date the platform keeps telling you. Nothing gets deleted that day and nothing is taken away from you. If you have not subscribed, the account becomes read-only: everybody can still sign in, read, report and export. The day you subscribe, everything turns back on. You get reminders at sixty days, thirty days and a week out.
If you get stuck
Write to support@allinonenonprofit.com. Most questions about where something is have a short answer.
If you would rather have somebody on a call with you while you do this, Launch Support is the same walkthrough with a product support person on a screen share, and for advice about your organization rather than the software, a consultant seat comes with AIONP Essentials and AIONP Complete. Neither is required. The Launch Plan is free either way.