10 Essential Steps to Secure Your First Funding: A Quick Guide for Nonprofit Founders

You started your nonprofit to make a difference—not to feel stuck wondering how to pay for it.

10 Essential Steps to Secure Your First Funding is your nonprofit launch companion—designed to help new founders move from hopeful to funded without spinning in circles. If you're staring down the question, “How do I raise money when I don’t know where to start?”—this guide was written for you.

Inside, you’ll get a clear, doable plan to:

• Identify exactly how much funding you need (and what it’s for)

• Build a foundation donors trust

• Choose fundraising strategies that fit your time, energy, and capacity

• Understand funding sources—even if you’ve never raised a dollar

• Keep going when you hit challenges, rejections, or burnout

Written by Alesha Mathis, a nonprofit mentor with over 17 years of experience, this quick-start guide offers encouragement, strategy, and real-world insight. You don’t need a development team. You don’t need a grant writer. You just need a roadmap that makes sense.

This book is perfect for:

• First-time nonprofit founders

• Newly approved 501(c)(3)s

• Grassroots leaders tired of self-funding

• Anyone ready to stop guessing and start growing

You’ve got the mission. Now let’s get you the money to move it forward.