How To Address A Need In Your Community? - Becoming a solution based nonprofit.

In today’s climate in society, we face a series of social & economic issues in our communities. Whether it’s poverty, environment issues, health issues, inequalities, animal abuse, etc there is a problem near you! This is where the significance of a nonprofit comes in, a nonprofit’s mission should be to address a specific need with a solution to solve it. In life we are presented with many of problems and issues that might hinder our success or growth, but with the approach of turning a problem into a solution is what nonprofits have been doing for years for our communities & movements in society.

As your nonprofit develops and grows the factor of addressing the needs becomes larger and more constant. When I first founded The Sanders Hand the adrenaline of passion & giving back had a dark shadow on us finding the specific need to service. We knew we wanted to operate in the realm of education & community solving the poverty issues in our impoverished communities but we struggled with how & why! It wasn’t until I met the CEO of Busy Bee a foundation in Houston servicing communities with health resources. We had a meeting and I pitched who we are & what we do, he responded with “Ok what’s your impact? What are you doing in the community that hasn’t been done already? This is where it hit home, we were operating in a circle and we are in needing of pushing the ball forward we have to find a need and fill that void with our programs. With founding your own nonprofit the most important thing is to research organizations that are already operating in your community get familiar with what they do so you can ensure you’re not duplicating their efforts. Your organization or business has to have a unique sound & touch, especially when it comes to competing for grants, funding & donations.

Ask yourself what do we do, that makes us different? Don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have too. Does our mission fill a desperate need in our community. From that conversation our entire vision and focus changed. Looking back on that day now it was June 9, 2017 if it wasn’t for that specific conversation I can’t imagine Sanders Hand being able to grow so fast without that insight. When finding a need you must factor in your organizations audience, & potential donors. Create a business map of how can we create change & what will we do, spend time pulling data & getting survey results to operate from. Before you want to officially launch your organization create a projection of how you will implement that change to build towards too. Think of It like this imagine if in Today’s society we didn’t have specific organization who do a certain thing for the greater good. Imagine if there wasn’t a Red Cross, Boys & Girls Club, Goodwill, how will those in need get the help they need. Times we have experienced national disasters if there wasn’t a Red Cross how will families get help? If all nonprofits were created to service all areas of need there wouldn’t be a impact. One nonprofit can’t service all areas, this is why It’s extremely important to find your niche & excel in it. It’s like a basketball team you have your starting 5 who are all the best in their position your point guard is the point guard for a reason because they’re good in that position, you wouldn’t expect your point guard to be a good center because that’s not their expertise. Same for your nonprofit you have to use that same mentality with your organization. Find what you do best in or what you can do best in and push towards addressing that need, leveraging your organization and it’s resource to change lives.

The Sanders Hand founded a need inside of the classrooms & education system from valuable field experience. Highly advise anyone who has first started their own nonprofit to spend at least the first 6 months doing field experience & extensive research. You have to know how to do something before you jump in. Spend time volunteering, networking, going to local events to get a better feel of what you’re aiming for. Being in creative spaces with other organizations also empowers your mind with new ideas! Remember you have to intervene in someone’s life in order to lead them out.

Art of Giving One Nonprofit Can Change The World - Sebastian Sanders