Should I Start a Nonprofit?

Thank you for subscribing to Mann on a Mission newsletter, which I write for servant leaders just like you, every month. My mission is to address the Churn of Disconnection that's tearing us apart, propose best practices for bridging that Churn, and ways to get big sh*t done when nobody else is coming.

I've been retired from the Army nearly a decade now, and this is one of the most common questions I hear from veterans and civilians who are looking to make a bigger impact in the world.

Just a few years after the war started, my wife, Monty, and I wrote a children's book for military kids. 2004 to be exact. We did it because we saw a big gap in helping our young family cope with what was shaping up to be a very long war.

There were very few storytelling resources for stay-behind parents with little kids who were trying to understand why their other parent had to be gone on long deployments. Monty and I wanted to write a book that the parents at home could read to the child that would help them not only cope more effectively with why mom or dad was deployed, but to also feel like they were part of the mission...part of something bigger. Having no idea what we were doing, we just saw a gap and we filled it. We wrote two children's books: Daddy Keeps Us Free and Mommy Keeps Us Free.

We had no idea what to do next, but we knew we wanted the proceeds from the book’s sales to go back to helping military families. We also started a nonprofit 501C3 called Patriot Families. Did I mention we had no idea what we were doing? And it wasn't like we had anything big going on, like a war or something like that. I've always believed in figuring things out as I go, so I also convinced Monty that I could start the entity and submit for the 501C3 myself. Which (you guessed it)...I did with absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Somehow, all those things worked out pretty well. The book wasn't half bad, we managed to get it to families in our Special Forces Group, and quite a few other family readiness groups purchased in bulk and gave the books out. That allowed us to print more books. The Green Beret Foundation even bought $1,000 worth of books and donated them. But damn...the whole process was complicated and very exhausting.

A couple of years later, we looked at our little nonprofit and our kids’ books and decided to go bigger. As I retired from the military, we decided to take on the military transition challenge. I had very few resources in my transition, and I felt we could do more. We did. I wrote a book called Mission America: Straight Talk about Military Transition. We pushed it out to thousands of veterans and active-duty folks dealing with transition.

When I had been out of the Army for a few years, I went through a very dark period of mental health challenges, and I almost took my own life. A civilian mentor helped me leverage storytelling as a modality to find healing and to bridge the civilian/military gap for renewed purpose and impact. It was so impactful that Monty and I decided to change the name of our nonprofit to The Heroes Journey, a non-profit that would help warriors find their voice and tell their story in transition. We provided workshops for veterans, first-responders, and their families that really had a strong narrative impact at a community level.

I also used warrior storytelling from the stage to help civilians understand the impact of modern war while validating those who lived it, by writing and performing in a play called, Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret.

The overall result has been a lot of lives changed, and more than a few saved.

As I write this, the systemic abandonment of our Afghan Allies, the growing national security threat, and the moral injury so many of our post 9/11 veterans are dealing with has led me to consider the evolution of our nonprofit into one of advocacy, accountability, and education.

I've evolved in my own personal journey, and my nonprofit has evolved alongside me, and Monty has been my partner in all of it. This has been a very powerful way to stay relevant and focused on making an impact in the world after my military service, but it's not for everyone. I’ve made a ton of mistakes. I'm not sure we needed a nonprofit for much of it and I could have done a much better job running it.

For those of you who are at the point in your life where you're wondering if you can make a bigger impact and you're toying with the idea of a nonprofit, I offer three considerations:

1.?Don't rush in. Get clear on your why:

Monty and I went too fast on forming our nonprofit. We didn't do enough due diligence. We didn't spend time reflecting on why we wanted to do it or getting the clarity that our donors and our supported people deserved. If I had to do it over again, I would slow it down. In fact, that's what I'm doing right now. As I consider the next evolution of our nonprofit, I'm slowing down. We are in a 90-day tactical pause to get clear on what we are doing next and why.

Take a hard look at the problem you want to solve. Make sure you can articulate the problem in a conversation to someone else because the problem you solve needs to be clear. Take your time in the beginning and get it right.

2. Consider supporting another nonprofit before starting your own:

There are lots of nonprofits out there for just about anything you want to take on. I recommend doing the due diligence and finding out who else is doing the kind of work you want to do. Reach out to them. See if there is a way to audit or intern with them. Lots of nonprofits, including ours, will take volunteers who are trying to figure out what they want to do for their next mission. Just by working with another nonprofit, you'll get a sense if it's something you really want to do on your own. Hell, you might just find that you are fulfilled by supporting the mission of another organization. With many of the headaches that come with a nonprofit, that can be a good thing. If you do end up forming a nonprofit, this audit approach will let you learn about the potentially catastrophic mistakes without making them in real time. It's time well spent, trust me.

3. Don't let your desire to do good send you to the poor house:

So many nonprofit founders, especially veterans, are mission-driven folks. They can't stand the idea of any type of service that generates revenue or doesn't involve a deep level of sacrifice. I get it. I really do. It's very honorable and we need more people like that in the world, but a nonprofit is still a business; it just doesn't make a profit or generate dividends to the owners. However, it still needs to be run like a solid business. Founders who martyr themselves financially by not taking a salary or working so deeply in their nonprofit that they can't sustain their own basic livelihood are a liability to the people they serve. I know because I did it. I avoided a salary for 10 years as a nonprofit founder, and I worked so deeply in the nonprofit that my for-profit work suffered; so did my family and myself. Take the time to learn how you can care for yourself, your family, and your people financially and still put good into the world. It's essential in staying viable over the long-term.

The country is at a very vulnerable time in our history. Division is rampant and many people are losing hope. Nonprofits can make a big impact in getting to better days, but how you set that nonprofit up and lead it will determine if it's an asset or liability to civil society, as well as your family. Take the time to get it right and the people you serve will remember you for it. Get it wrong and they'll also remember you, but not in the way you want.

I'll see you on the Rooftop.