Your first month after the determination letter

Why the order matters

Every new nonprofit gets one window where the people around it are proud enough to give on the spot. Board members, friends, the folks who watched you fight through the IRS paperwork. It's the warmest your donors will ever be, and it's right now. Most orgs have nothing for them to click yet, so the window quietly closes.

So this checklist front-loads one thing: a working donate link, this week. Everything else slots in behind it.

Week 1: the donate-form setup, step by step

The tool I point new orgs to is Donorbox. A donation form with its own shareable link, no website required, and the standard plan runs $0 a month. Their own setup estimate is about 25 minutes across three steps, and that matches what I've seen:

1. Create your account and first campaign (their estimate: about 12 minutes). Name it something plain, like "Support [your org]." Skip the customization rabbit hole for now. Plain and live beats pretty and unpublished.
2. Connect the money (about 10 minutes). Donorbox pays out through Stripe or PayPal, connected to your organization's bank account. Which is why the one prerequisite matters: a dedicated nonprofit bank account, opened with your EIN letter and formation documents. Never your personal checking, even as "just for now." Commingled funds are the mess that takes months to unwind.
3. Publish and share the link (about 3 minutes). You get a hosted donation page with its own URL. No website needed. Text it to yourself and make a $5 test donation so you've seen the whole flow a donor sees.

• Donate link live and tested with a real card
• Payouts landing in the org's bank account, not a personal one
• Link saved somewhere you can paste it in five seconds

What the $0/month plan includes, and what it doesn't

Honest note: a percentage of everything is still real money. The trade is no fixed cost while your donation volume is small and unpredictable, which is exactly the situation a first-month org is in.

This week: the one message to send your earliest supporters

Don't write a newsletter. Don't wait for a website. Send one short personal message, individually, to the 10 to 30 people who already know what you've been building: board, family, friends, early volunteers. Text or email, whichever that person actually reads.

Why it works: it's news, not a pitch. It names one concrete goal. And it gives the proudest people in your corner something to click while they're proud. Send it the same week the link goes live, then thank every single giver personally within a day or two.

The rest of month one

• Store the paperwork permanently. Determination letter and EIN letter: original somewhere fireproof, scan in a shared drive, copy in your own email so it's findable by search in five years.
• Know your filing dates. Most small nonprofits file the Form 990-N e-postcard annually. Put the deadline on the calendar now. Missing it three years running costs you the exemption you just earned.
• Add the donate link everywhere you already exist. Email signature, social bios, the Google listing if you have one. Free placements, five minutes.
• Log every early donor. A spreadsheet is fine in month one: name, date, amount, how you thanked them. Your first hundred donors are the list every future campaign starts from.
• Skip for now: a custom website, a paid CRM, merch, grant applications. All real, none of it month-one. Grants in particular move slowly and mostly want to see a year of operating history anyway.

Pricing and plan facts on this page are Donorbox's own published numbers (donorbox.org/pricing, verified July 2026). Confirm current terms when you sign up. Nothing here is legal or tax advice. For filings and state registration rules, talk to a professional.