Starting a not for profit organization?

Help with starting a non-profit organization?

• Hi, I have a lot of passion for this, and my dreams are to start a non profit organization to help out countries in Africa. I want to focus on the DRC and helping woman and children during the African World War. I've been researching on how to start this, but I need some clarification and help. I am in college, but I really feel that if I try hard enough I can achieve this. Could someone tell me exactly what you have to do to be able to declare yourself as a non-profit, and how I would be able to reach out to organizations and communities in Africa? I've read about starting the charities here, but is there a special way that is required when your charity is to other countries? And how can I find a board of directors, and find people that would be interested in helping me out. Please and thank you if you provide me with any info.

• Answer:

  To be blunt: you don't. It's good that you're passionate about something, but you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. The "African World War"? I must have missed that one. You need to know your subject, your cause backward and forward to even begin to think about starting a nonprofit. You don't. Spend your time learning as much as you can about the area where you want to specialize. Use your network (or create one, if you don't have one already) to learn about organizations in the DRC or wherever that you may be able to team up with. You have a lot of learning to do before you can start acting.