Nonprofits provide important services and support many important missions both locally and globally. But it can be difficult to create and build a nonprofit that will serve its mission and make a difference. There are many differences between a for profit corporation and a nonprofit. Fortunately, Nolo, a company that makes the law accessible to anyone, has an excellent guide to help you get started or to help you continue along if you are started but having trouble building it to where you want it to go. The 4th Edition of Starting & Building a Nonprofit A Practical Guide by Peri H. Pakroo, J.D., is an essential guide to help you get your nonprofit up and running and, most importantly, keep it going.

Like most Nolo books, it is organized in an easy manner to allow the reader to gain the most information in a usable manner. The short introduction provides some nonprofit basics and a few words on running a nonprofit.

After the introduction, there are chapters that focus on naming and structuring your nonprofit, developing your strategic plan, developing your initial budget, your board of directors, your workforce of staff and volunteers, fundraising, risk management and insurance, understanding contracts and agreements, marketing your nonprofit, publishing informational materials, spreading the word online about your nonprofit, managing your finances, and getting professional help.

These chapters provide good general information. They provide the basics. However, you will want to learn more about some of these topics. Take fundraising for instance. This is a very important area for nonprofits, and Nolo actually has a couple of other books that focus just on this one topic. So while the chapter in this book provides some general guidance, you may want to further your reading in this area with additional resources. I also appreciate the chapter on getting professional help, because while this book is good with general information, there are some areas where you really should seek the advice of a professional and working with attorneys and accountants will be important for the nonprofit that wants to succeed.

The book comes with a CD-Rom that contains a number of forms and checklists to assist you with your organization. These forms and checklists go along with the various chapters in the book. There are also hard copies in the back of the book.

This is an easy book to read with a lot of good information to assist you with starting a nonprofit or if you are working at building a nonprofit, to create an efficient organization that will make a difference. It is not the only reference you will need, and in fact the book recommends other Nolo titles to help with forming a nonprofit corporation and fundraising. I do recommend this book as a starting place to anyone working with a nonprofit, especially board of directors, executive directors, or someone wanting to know what it takes to start one. And it is a good reference for an Executive Director or Board member to read and have on the shelf.