From the daily archives: Thursday, March 11, 2010
Are you setting up a non-profit organization? Don’t ignore the specific, technical steps you must take to set up a new non profit organization. Although they will vary depending on your location, here are some guidelines for American non profit organizations.
501-c-3 or Fiscal Sponsorship?
Most independent non profits are incorporated under the IRS 501-c-3 code which allows organizations serving a public social need to operate on a tax-exempt basis and to receive tax deductible donations and grants to fund their operations. The 501-c-3 application, although costing under $1,000 to process, can be a bit daunting.
To get up and running quickly, many non profits begin as fiscally sponsored projects operating under the umbrella of a 501-c-3 fiscal sponsor with the stated purpose of serving the public through organizations like yours. The fiscal sponsor will let you collect tax exempt donations by taking a processing fee, often a percentage of the funding dollars raised. They will also offer a shorter application process and administrative support for your organization as it gets up and running. With this start up support, you will be in a better position to apply for your own 501-c-3 status at a later date.
Board of Directors
The appointed board of directors have the authority and responsibility to run the non profit, usually by selecting and advising the non profit’s executive director. As they can be held legally liable for the activities of the non profit, it is in their best interest to run the organization safely and legally to avoid risk. Some states require only a minimum of one director, who can be the executive director of the organization, while others require at least three. In any event, building a devoted and responsible board over time can insure that the fundraising and management capacity of your non profit continues to develop.
Corporate Bylaws
Most non profits are required to create official bylaws. This document details the rules that govern your organization at the board level, such as how meetings are run and how decisions are made. There is no need to create this kind of document from scratch, as templates are readily available and generally refer to the famous Robert’s Rules of Order as the method for running meetings.
Are you looking for more advice on setting up a non-profit or developing non-profit business plans? Call 877-BIZ-PLAN to learn how Growthink can help you build your non-profit organization.
One of the most profitable businesses on the Internet is information marketing. Even though there is more information than ever in the world, people are looking for specialized solutions. That’s why they are willing to spend money on a quality information product that provides them those solutions.
If you are looking to get into the information marketing arena, then here are 3 tips for writing ebooks like hotcakes:
1. Choose a starving market that is looking for products to buy. Which market would you like to target? There are three kinds of markets that buy products like crazy: the home business opportunities market, the health market and the hobbies market (people who have rather obsessive hobbies).
2. Write a killer title for your ebook if you want it to sell like wildfire. A killer title can make all the difference in terms of sales. Writing a curiosity-inducing yet benefit-rich title is sure to get buyers in droves!
3. Write content that beats the market to a pulp. Don’t just rewrite what others are already writing about. Add in something original to your ebook. If you provide high quality information in your ebook, your customers are much more likely to buy from you again in the future. Remember, repeat customers are far easier to sell to than new customers!
Follow those 3 ‘guidelines’ and you will surely go a long way to making it in this ebook business. Because, make no mistake, it is a competitive landscape out there, and if you want to make serious profits, you have got to provide real value to your customers to gain their trust and their money.
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Creative writing is all about playing around with words on any given subject. It allows you to let your imagination run wild. Those of you thinking of writing your first novel tend to have that one vital ingredient required, an active imagination. It is through the power of that imagination that your first novel will be created.
More often than not when thinking of creative writing, we tend to believe itâ??s only for certain people when really anyone can do it. Itâ??s a great release for your passions and thoughts, giving you an ideal opportunity to put down all that musing. Creative writing is about committing to paper whatever you want, in the way you want to do it. The challenge of actually doing this, however, can be overwhelming to most people yet, if thatâ??s all there is to it, then why donâ??t more people do it? The challenge of writing your first novel doesnâ??t have to be as daunting as it may seem.
IDEAS:
Use your local library and study all the different writing styles offered in short stories for inspiration and ideas.
Is there a chapter in your life you could use as a base for a short story? Remember that only you know itâ??s from your experience so you can expand as much or as little as you want; itâ??s your story.
Try this popular writing exercise. Get out a dictionary and, with your eyes closed, randomly pick out half a dozen words. With a timer set to, say, a quarter of an hour, freewrite on each chosen word and try to incorporate the said word within the first paragraph.
Pick up a ladiesâ?? magazine, open up at any page and again freewrite for fifteen minutes on the main photograph or picture on view.
As a writer, you will need to be able set down all emotions and feelings. The seven deadly sins are:
GREED -Â strong and selfish desire for possessions, wealth or power.
LUST -Â a passionate desire for something
ENVY – discontented longing aroused by someone elseâ??s possessions, quality or look
GLUTTONY – the habit or fact of eating excessively
WRATH – extreme anger
SLOTH – reluctance to work or make an effort; laziness
Each one of these words is fantastic to write about and can offer a multitude of dimensions to explore. Create a short story about each one, making it as long or short as your imagination allows.
Are you close to Writing Your First Novel? To learn more about an excellent writing software aimed at giving would-be authors the incentive and know-how to succeed then please visit my site http://www.writingyourfirstnovel.com/writing-your-first-novel
How to reach your intended constituents with your non profit’s services is no mere afterthought for a non profit founder. These are some marketing methods to plan for and to describe in the marketing section of your non profit business plan.
Partner Organizations
Businesses, the government, or related non profits may be in a position to refer those who need your services to you (or you to them). Look for groups like this who can be potential partners when their stated purpose is to help funnel those in need to non profits like yours. Establish a positive, win-win relationship with these organizations, focused on both how they can help you and how your services will help them and their own constituents. If the exchange is uneven, perhaps the partner should be paying you for your service, or your non profit should be paying them. Paying for referrals should not be ruled out if it is more efficient than other marketing methods.
Go To The Sources
If you’ve done your homework and learned where your constituents live, work, and spend their time, you will have many ideas of physical locations where you should advertise to reach them. If other businesses and non profits have the same idea of reaching the target market this way, you may find it hard to be heard through the clutter of marketing messages. Look for the unexploited spaces and always think about how your message can stand out through clever graphic design or through personal interaction, for example.
Advertising
For some non profits, traditional advertising methods, including television, radio, print, and online, have an important place in the marketing plan. Look for outlets that have a demonstrated ability to reach your constituents at low cost. Then consider those that offer further discounts for non profits. Remember that, with mass marketing techniques, you are paying to reach those who don’t need to hear your message as well as those who do, so choose the advertising channel wisely and attempt to measure the results from each channel so you can adjust where you spend your marketing dollars later on.
Are you looking for more advice on how to start a non-profit or develop your non-profit business plan? Call 877-BIZ-PLAN to learn how Growthink can help you build your non-profit organization.
by Cathy Macleod, 31 January 2009.
Agatha Christie, Fay Weldon and Ann Morven have all embraced electronic publication as the ebook revolution gushes into the new year of 2009.
For evergreen Christie characters, such as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, it entails a reformat from the hardprint titles. But new Weldon and Morven titles, exclusively digital, can be read only on an electronic device. These may be handheld, laptop or desktop, the worldwide appliances that have changed reading habits.
Ann Morven, diva of the short whodunit, said her publishers had decided to issue her latest mystery in digital style only. It is a short story, “Birthday Snakes”, featuring the heavyweight chump of crime fiction, a female sleuth with bumbling instinct for human frailty.
“My publishers have attracted on-screen readers for the past year by means of texts below 6000 words,” Ann Morven said. “This means short stories and serials. The reason is simple. Booktrade watchers believe that to absorb a long digital novel needs practice when we are all used to paperbacks. People are still just bonding with their megabyte machines, whether mobile phone or a book-friendly computer.”
She revealed her own preference remained a hardprint paperback, but said she achieved “something of the same intimacy” reading a laptop loaded with the free Mobipocket Reader software.
Fay Weldon’s efiction is also being introduced in short takes. It appears in serialized episodes at YouGov.com, under the title “Woodworm”.
Fay Weldon says she welcomes feedback and is writing the chapters in a continuing plot that can be influenced by what followers of the serial suggest to her.
She is not the first to follow this course. Alexander McCall Smith began the interactive formula with “44 Scotland Street”, a serial in The Scotsman newspaper. Later, it was published as a hardprint book, and several more Scotland Street titles have followed involving the same characters.
McCall Smith is currently writing a similar serial for London’s Daily Telegraph. It features London dwellers and appears under the title of “Corduroy Mansions”. Significantly, the chapters are available for digital download at the newspaper’s website.
Books by the late Agatha Christie that will appear in digital format are, of course, already popular in hardprint. The digital publisher, Penguin in the United States, believes there is a new market in the electronic field.
Initially, ten digital titles will be published by this publisher, one of the global giants to recognize that ebooks are here to stay.
Up until 2008, it was small publishers who led the trend into ebooks. This was mainly an economic choice to avoid the crippling overheads of printing, binding, warehousing thousands of books, distributing them to bookshops, and receiving just 40% percent of the cover price. That 40% had to pay for all those things plus advances and royalties to authors and, perhaps, leave a small profit for the publisher.
Such an impossible business formula encouraged small publishers to try the alternative digital market, selling direct to readers. Their pioneering endeavour has shown the way to the global giants who now suffer in the world recession.
The year 2009, therefore, is going to mark out fresh focus on ebooks following dismal earnings from traditionally printed titles. The business world is well into electronic documents, so is the world of education, where text books now come on a screen.
Fiction will enjoy its best digital year yet, because what was once a trickle has become a torrent.
Note this: “Read an ebook week” is March 8-14. Lots of promotional goodies offered! Details at www.ebookweek.com
Happy reading! This from Cathy Macleod at booktaste.com
Cathy Macleod is an independent literary critic at www.booktaste.com
If I could give you one key, all important, tops above all tip for article marketing, here it is. Now I know you are wondering what it is and you want to know, right now, right this second. But, if you want to find out you will have to read the article. I promise if you finish the article you will agree with me what the greatest tip is!
I love stories and want to tell you one about an article marketer and his wife.
A very successful article marketer was married to a vivacious blonde wife. They lived on a ranch and the marketer’s business was in trouble. So, in order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they needed to purchase a bull so that they could breed their own stock.
The husband tells his wife, ‘When I find a bull and decide to buy it, I will contact you to drive out after me and we will haul it home.’
The marketer arrives at a bull owners ranch with $600, inspects the bull, and decides he wants to buy it. The owner tells him that he will sell it for $599, not a penny less.
After paying him, he drives to the nearest town to send his wife a telegram to tell her the news.
He walks into the telegraph office, and says, ‘I want to send a telegram to my wife to tell her that I’ve bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home.’
The telegraph operator explains that he’ll be glad to help him, but ‘it will cost 99 cents a word.’ Hmm, sighs the husband and realized he can only send one word.
After a few minutes of thinking, he nods and says, ‘I want you to send her the word ‘comfortable.’
The operator shakes his head. ‘How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word ‘comfortable?’
The husband explains, ‘My wife’s blonde. The word is big. She’ll read it very slowly… ‘com-for-da-bul’.
If you haven’t figured it out by reading the article, then I will give you one last chance. The one most important, all encompassing, tops above all tip to article marketing is have fun and be funny. Life is too short to take it and your business internet money online opportunity too seriously!
Rodney Erb is a 1971 graduate of West Point. CPT Erb served 8 years in the Army receiving the Bronze Star for service in Vietnam. His corporate life was with prestigious Corporations such as UTC, Citicorp/Citibank, Merrill Lynch and The Hartford. He started his own company in 1993 and worked in New York City and throughout the U.S. He has helped corporations successfully automate their online Businesses. If you want the best ?Affiliate Marketing? business internet money online opportunity go to http://www.the4daymoneymakingblueprint.info 4-Day Money Making Blueprint or go to http://www.quickmoneyeasy.info Make Money Online.
It very well could be real, but for now it’s the latest heart-pounding fiction book, Sledgehammer, about a terrorist who arrives in the ER with smallpox symptoms. An ER physician suspects it but has just six days to convince hospital executives and the U.S. Government before an epidemic breaks out.
The story is brought vividly to life by Dr. Paulo J. Reyes who obtained his MD at the UCSF School of Medicine, has 25 years in medicine and internal medicine and is a First Responder for the busiest cities in California specifically in terrorists training.
In Sledgehammer, the lead character, Max Kroose, an intuitive emergency room physician, believes terrorists are to blame for the attack and fears the more lethal form of smallpox, called Sledgehammer, will kill within days. As time progresses, the terrorists planned attacks at a sports arena, mall and airport must be stopped. The question becomes can this ER doctor convince the hospital administration and the public health care system about the presence of this deadly disease and the need to vaccinate the American public. You won’t be able to stop reading as you seek to find out the truth in this non-stop thriller.
How big a threat is smallpox? “The Federal Government should allow voluntary smallpox vaccinations to protect us from smallpox bioterrorist attacks,” says Dr. Reyes. “At the very least the Federal Government should allow voluntary vaccinations of the first responders which should include all hospital medical staff. The President and the military have been vaccinated. Why shouldn’t the American public?”
Dr. Reyes also authored Health-Care Reform or Redistribution of Cost? and in his research of the health care system, he has seen its shortcomings. Realizing there is clear and present danger of a terrorist attack in the health care system has prompted him to support voluntary smallpox vaccinations.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) considers smallpox as a possible danger and includes it as one of the possible agents of a bioterrorist attack, in its website under the subheading Emergency Preparedness and Response along with anthrax, plague, and tularemia.
Reyes believes the Federal Government should consider a trial program to detect the presence of the virus – similar to a pregnancy test – so if the disease presents itself, it will be detected before it becomes an epidemic or pandemic.
The American public is immuno-naïve to smallpox, which means it could spread very rapidly, Reyes says. And containment could be even more difficult or impossible if the virus was aerosolized, which the CDC believes may be the case, he says.
With new terrorist attacks continually happening in the United States and the fear of a global pandemic, Sledgehammer is a gripping book to get a real insight into what could possibly lie ahead unless immediate action is taken. Buy your book today at http://www.pauloreyes.com, Amazon.com or any major online bookstore.
Dr. Paulo J. Reyes has previously appeared on CNN and is available for TV, Radio, newspaper, article quotes, and other media interviews. Please contact Diana at Diana@pauloreyes.com or (954) 971-4025. Stop by his site for the latest information and updates on current news – http://www.pauloreyes.com.
Free to reprint as long as author’s bio remains intact.
Small non shedding dogs are generally hypoallergenic. Hundreds of thousands, even millions around the world love animals, but alergies and sneezing as well as sore eyes due to hair stop them from being owners of these cute little creatures. However, there is a soloution, non shedding dogs!
The term non shedding refers to dogs that are minimal to literally no hair loss. These dogs release only a small amount of dander, basically small scales on the skin that flake offer and cause people to have allergies. However, those with allergies should still make sure the particular breed can be around them; you wouldn’t want to take a dog home only to relise you have to send him back!
Reasearch has been done on different dog breeds that fit the non shedding catergory. If you are on the lookout for small non shedding dogs, there are a few that are recommended. The Airedale Terrier, Boston Terrier, Basenji, Havanese and Maltese are all non shedding dogs, we encourage you to click the link below if you are interested in learning more about these dogs and others.
Click here for more information on small non shedding dogs
You can find hundreds of non shedding dog shelters and homes around, take one in today and save a little dog now. Before heading to the pet shop to pick up a pet that has been cared and loved for and will continue to be, head over to your local animal adoption center and try to save a life.
For more information on dog shedding in general, please click here
I run a dog shedding website as well as a few others, I currently have one dog, Max. He is a blind, nine year old Jack Russel/Chihuahua. He gets around perfectly fine and is loved by all the family, truly a great addition to our family, he’s wonderful!
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