Well, I blew my knee last night. Today I've got a lot to do for the shelter but I'm doped up on anit-inflammatories, which knock me out cold.

The first instinct is to skip the medicine, ignore the knee, and act on the part of the greater good. And before I offer up some sage advice, I have to admit that I did this for most of the morning before it got to the point that I couldn't walk any more. Now I'm out on the couch, watching reruns and I've just declared this ice bag my mostest bestest friend in the world. I could have been working slowly, a bit unefficiently, on a few advil (really, they just knock me out cold. I'm an over-the-counter peanut gut), now I'm completly useless on vicadin and I'm going to miss working on Wednesday too because I have to go in to the doctor again.

There's a moral to this story. Those who work in the non-profit or public service sector suffer from a form of caretaker syndrome. We don't have a child or a patient in the traditional sense, but our organizations and our causes are our babies. All of the good advice that applies to nurses and caregivers needs to be taken by the community servant from time-to-time. Take time for yourself and your family. It's hard, I know: if you just finish that stack of paperwork you could be saving a life, a forest--how does eating something besides frozen pizza or doing your laundry even compare? But your baby, whether it's a shelter, a cause, a mountain deserves a caretaker in good health, inside and out, representing it at your best, not half as good, not almost as good.

@#%& knee...

A book. I write very well, always have. In the days before kids and jobs and college I was much more prolific and every once in a while some obscure article pops up in some obscure zine or trade magazine that I have to take responsibility for, but mostly I just remember to peck out a few lines in my great American novel every month or two, sandwiched inbetween everything else. At this rate I'm hoping to finish before I leave this great Earth--don't think I'll have time for a sequel!

Algebra 1: THREE TIMES
*In grade school, it didn't matter if girls could do math. My teachers told me to just copy the boys and not worry so much about it
*That made it all brand new material the first time through in college. I passed, but not with a very good grade.
* third time through, I nailed it. Algebra, calculus, statistics, physics: backwards, forwards and with one hand tied behind my back.

What did I learn? That it doesn't take special talent or even aptitude at something to be good at it, just the willingness to dig your heels in and keep trying. Oh, and that girls are darn good at math.

If you're struggling through the HUGE 501(c)3 application right now in order to get non-profit status for your organization, you may already be familiar with the Financial Data portion--for some, the most daunting portion., especially if yours is a newer organization attempting to come up with a 3 year projection.
    It seems daunting enough, so my suggestion might seem counter-productive.
    Instead of trying to come up with a rough estimate for categories like "fund-raising expenses" or "gifts, grants, and cotributions"--purposly broad to allow for the fact that you may not feel like you know what your doing yet, I propose that you take a little extra time to sit down with your officers, meet with people with experience in your field, and make a few phone calls to organizations or government departments--especially where salary and wages are concerned. Sit down with a spreadsheet, or paper and pencil and make a projection as detailed as possible. You'll probably find that you need to make categories more detalied then the broad ones on the 501(c)3. Training expenses, food, the cost of 20 specialized wren houses for your bird sanctuary.  Additionally, work through at least one fundraiser step by step. Call and find out how much 100 copies of that rummage sale flyer really will cost. You'll probably find hidden fund-raising expenses like printing and that hot cocoa you want to supply to your volunteers. For your 501(c)3 estimate you can multiply the total expenses for this fundraiser times the number of fundraisers you plan each year--you will at least have a reliable starting figure. Just take everything one step at a time. Once you've finished, you'll find that it will be easy to intuitively group most items into broader categories and you'll have the line items that call for an "itemized list" ready.

So what does this all get you? First of all, the more reasonable and well thought-out your projection appears, the more likely it is to pass the IRS muster. Secondly, you're going to find that a detailed projection is a significant advantage in a number of business transactions, such as grant applications, state non-profit applications, and opening bank loans and accounts--even facility rental. And finally, a cohesive financial plan insures all your organization members are on the same page and gives you a powerful tool. You'll be able to avoid costly mistakes and see at a glance what expenses you'll have to meet and where you can improve revenue.

"Sweet 100" is, in my opinion, the best tomato ever grown.

It's getting harder to find the seeds for this hardy, abundantly producing and non-determinant cherry-type tomato plant these days, but well worth it if you can.

When I was a little girl, my grandfather, a retired chef, grew all his own vegetables on his over-sized lot in Southwest Portland. During the summer and early fall, you could always count on a bowl of sweet, perfect sweet100s being perched on the kitchen counter by the back door. He was a perfectionist when it came to his garden, not a weed in sight, perfectly spaced rows, and healthy, ABUNDANT plants. And the tomatoes were the show piece of the garden.

So what does this have to do with a youth shelter? One of my favorite memories as a child is playing in the dark, rich earth in the garden with my cousins. The tomato plants in particular were widely spaced enough to allow for this, and in the summer heat that particular green scent they produce became closely associated with contentedness, security, and belonging. Now all I have to do is stick my nose right into a tomato plant to regain that sense of blissfulness and safety. It reawakens my connection to my family and community. Grampa grew up on a farm in rural Washington and his Portland garden made him one of the most urban of my antecedents. Most of the officers at Abundance of Hope have roots in the local rural and farm communities of Washington and Oregon and this was one of the reasons that was important to us to create a new shelter building, not just try to convert an old institutional building over. We want property for our kids to grow things on in order to grow themselves. I don't even need to document the learning, healing, and community building powers of a garden (check out some of Portland, Oregon's community gardens here: http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/index.cfm?c=djieg ), plenty have gone before me and done that. Personally, my hope is that for some of these kids, an attachment to the land will help them form a sense of place and home, many of them for the first time. Blissful, blissful tomatoes.

I feel silly, but our official organization checks came in the mail today in a big package that even included a rubber stamp for deposits and a nice binder and it just makes me all giddy inside. It's nice to feel like you are "for real". Heck, maybe we're just extra excitable around here: we practically had a party when we got our FIEN.

We're moving right along with everything else. I think the 501(c)3 is about ready to go. We need to tweak or financial report a little more, I think, and then one of our advisers was looking at helping us out a little more with our conflict-of-interest policy. Oh, there was some wording we wanted to clarify a little more in our organizing documents--otherwise, just about ready. I have happy butterflies!

I want this to be a sort of blueprint for others who are starting non-profits, so I want to remind you that most states in the US also require you to register with the state as a charity. In Washington state that's done through the Washington Secretary of State: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/charities/

Then you need to register separately, federally, if you'd like your donors to be able to deduct on their taxes. Here's the hidden help page ;)
http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=138838,00.html

We talked to some of the local scouting organizations. The Sea Scouts and the Boy Scouts have the need for community service to earn merit badges and rank and they are very interested in doing some fundraising for us. For rank they even need to plan and coordinate the fundraising--yay! That let's me concentrate on my paperwork. I'd like to put it to both organizations that maybe they'd like to have a little contest to see who could raise that $500 I want for the IRS papers first...

Thes guys seem pretty serious! http://sss650.org/