Nonprofit Organization (NPO) Development Program

NCC provides organizational development, fiscal sponsorships, and other direct assistance for individuals and groups who wish to craft their own educational programs and establish new nonprofit organizations.

NPO Development

Seed_to_SheleterThe NPO Development Program helps people develop and implement funded educational projects and programs and grow them into new nonprofit organizations. If you have an idea for transforming a community need into hands-on action, NCC can help you. Sometimes the only thing preventing a big idea from growing is a place to nurture it. NCC provides the organizational capacity to cultivate your vision and craft a solution.

Collaborations: Helping individuals and for-profit education and economic development businesses grow and extend their programs through partnering, project management, fundraising, and marketing.

Fiscal Sponsorships: Helping aspiring non-profits grow their programs within NCC until they are ready to take the next steps in creating a new organization to carry out their mission and vision.

Creating New Non-Profits:

NCC’s Pine Ridge Project resulted in the establishment of the WMCS whose mission is to preserve and protect the history, culture, language, practices and traditions of, and to educate the general public regarding the Lakota Sioux people.

For more information please contact: Neil Kaufman at (970) 215-4587 or Neil@NCCraftsmanship.org


The Opportunity

Craftsmanship Camp, Saw

Photo by Kevin Bacher

The steady growth in nonprofit businesses during the first decade of this century has resulted in significant positive impact to our national economy. During this period the number of nonprofits increased twenty five percent to more than 1.5 million, with growth rates surpassing both the business and government sectors. Nonprofits contribute more than half a trillion dollars to the national GDP, accounting for ten percent of jobs and earned wages (Urban Institute, 2014).

The single biggest hurdle for aspiring nonprofit entrepreneurs is a platform to develop their vision while providing programs and services. Starting a new non-profit requires applying for 501c3 (or other nonprofit) designation from the IRS using form 1023. This can be a long and potentially expensive process. Our experience has shown that when people hire an attorney to facilitate this process, it can take up to a year (or more), and cost upwards of $10,000 (or more) get to the finish line. The problem comes when the founding nonprofit management team and board of directors seek “donations” to fund the new venture.

Only after the new 501c3 organization is designated by the IRS are the donations considered tax deductible. Any donations received before then are considered retroactively deductible from the date of IRS designation. However, if for some reason the IRS delays or denies the designation process, the initial donors and contributors may not receive credit for their charitable donations. This adds a level of uncertainty similar to investor risk in the for profit sector. The last thing an aspiring non-profit organization wants is to disappoint their core group of contributors by failing to deliver anticipated tax benefits.

Fiscal sponsorships solve these problems by reducing or eliminating the risk to donors. You and NCC develop your nonprofit idea as a stand-alone educational program. This provides you an organizational platform from which to build programming and projects. Most importantly, because NCC is a designated nonprofit, any donations received to fund the new venture are tax deductible for your donors.

NCC takes our educational mission seriously. As such, we treat our nonprofit organization as a business because that’s what it is. What we’ve learned is non-profit work is incredibly fulfilling and rewarding, and that success is half genius and half harness. You provide the genius, we’ll provide the harness. Together we can turn your nonprofit vision into reality. Please contact us to learn more and discuss your nonprofit business ideas.


National Center for Craftsmanship Mission and Goals

Craftsmanship Camp, Footpath

Photo by Mika Moore

The mission of NCC is to preserve, enhance, and sustain our community craftspeople and to assure that their knowledge, skills and abilities are passed on to the next generation. Nationally, there exists a growing crisis as our skilled trade workers continue to age. The establishment of our information-based service economy has led to unintended consequences that have adversely affected our trades-based industries.

NCC seeks to address these and other issues facing our skilled trade workforce and industries. By developing and implementing real-world, hands-on training programs we are engaging community youth and young adults in an effort to recruit and train our future craftspeople. The majority of these youth, through circumstance or choice, will not be going on to college after high school graduation (in Colorado more than 20% will not even graduate high school). Careers in the skilled trades are both fulfilling and rewarding for these non-college bound youth. The jobs they will perform cannot be outsourced, provide relatively high wages, and can lead to small business creation and entrepreneurship. What NCC provides is a formal mechanism to engage, recruit, and train our future craftspeople.