Perhaps one of these situations sounds familiar?

• An Executive Director who can’t possibly take a vacation – ever – because if she missed a week all the work would literally stop.
• A sole staff member that could have oh-so-much more impact if only there was remotely adequate funding.
• A board chair who often bickers with the Executive Director and is frustrated that board members don’t raise nearly enough money.

Nonprofits are messy. They’re hardwired that way.

There’s rarely enough money, too many cooks, and an abundance of passion. Messy.

As the leader of a nonprofit – especially a smaller one – this messiness makes you feel exhausted and overwhelmed a lot of the time. You’re being pulled in a million directions and sometimes you feel all alone.

Wouldn’t it be so nice to have a board with deep pockets? A large staff? A brand everyone has heard of?

Sure. Big nonprofits have some nice advantages. Though many of these challenges can happen at big nonprofits too.

In many ways smaller nonprofits have it tougher.

Why? Because larger, well-funded nonprofits have the capacity to get outside help. They can hire consultants, fundraising experts, have their board get expensive ongoing training, spend for professional development opportunities or expensive donor software.

That’s a big advantage.

But at a smaller nonprofit like yours? Not a chance.

It’s a big problem. And one we aim to fix.

While our focus is on helping existing small and mid-sized nonprofits thrive, there are certainly members of the Lab who joined so they can get their nonprofits started the right way, right off the bat.

We get it. Most small nonprofits don’t have a budget for professional development. It’s very possible this is coming out of your own pocket.

So we know how important it is to keep this as affordable as possible. The Lab should not be a burden.

Since the price may change each time we open the doors to new members, we don’t publish the price until the doors are open. That said, we can assure you that the monthly cost of the Lab is less than:

• You spend on coffee each month
• That gym membership you rarely use
• 3 movie theatre tickets per month (or 2 in New York City)
• Your internet connection

In other words, we offer everyone the “small nonprofit rate”.

As long as you keep your membership active, you’ll keep your current price. Even when new members come in and pay more if the prices go up in the future, you’ll get to keep your lower price.

Yes!

Monthly members pay for the Lab just one month at a time and can cancel any time they want. If you sign up for an annual plan, you can cancel any time during the year with no further payments (though you’ll remain a member for the year you already paid for).

Once you cancel your account you will retain access to the Lab until your current monthly or annual subscription period ends. You can, of course, rejoin during any future open registration period at whatever the current price is at that time.

It really is a split. Many Lab members do pay for this out of pocket. Many others have their organizations pay for the Lab out of a professional development budget.

The entire goal is to help you build a thriving nonprofit so clearly you need to be able to share some of the material to do that. For example, if there is a template or checklist or something like that and you want to copy it and use it internally with other folks at your organization, that’s expected and entirely fine. Our policy is one account = one person. So, while you’re welcome to bring people in to watch a video course together, we do ask that you not share your login. Additionally, only you would have access to the Village.