How to Fund a Non-Profit Community Book Festival
Glennie Hillebrandt, Aaron Hutchison, Star Prerez
COMM/215
April 13, 2015
Gary Tandy

How to Fund a Non-Profit Community Book Festival We are looking to fund our Non-Profit Community Book Festival, The San Diego Community Book Festival. We have filed our paperwork and incorporated the name, and registered as a non-profit. We have applied for the non-profit federal and state exemptions, created our corporate bylaws and appointed our initial directors. Our first board meeting was held and all necessary licenses and permits have been obtained. With the completion of these, we need to take the next step and the most crucial one which is fundraising. When it comes to fund raising, individual donors contribute the largest amount.There is also available funding through grants offered by federal, state and local government. (cite source SBA) The catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) provides a database of all federal programs available to state and local government (cite sources gsa.gov). Upon trying to find funders you need to look to many different resources and not focus on just one. Treating a funder like you would any type of business prospect is key, keep things professional. (Foundation center) The foundation center is not a resource to supply funds, but there to help you in research providing information on how to receive grants and other resources to fund your non-profit. When trying to get funding make sure that you do your research about the organizations you are approaching to request funding from, you need to find out what approach works best with them for considering your request, such as phone calls, emails or a full proposal with supporting documents. You can go to the following web site http://www.usa.gov/Business/Nonprofit-State.shtml provides the documents needed to file with a non-profit. This will give you the links to the state you are wanting to set up your non-profit in. As we are working in San Deigo we want to California. This takes you to pages that give links to Incorporating, charitable activities, and state forms with more information. In California you are able to file most of the paperwork on line and can have it back in one business day. The attorney general in California regulates charities and fundraisers, makes guides, and publications to help charities comply with California State laws. They also have research tools and data bases that show public filing to be viewed and downloaded, with links to a searchable database that is not the same as the registry database. The searchable database is maintained by a third party not the Attorney General. The CFR has information and documents for commercial fund raising purposes as well. (State of California Department of Justice office of the Attorney General) It is important to know what the laws are where the fundraiser will take place. Many city, county and state regulations are different. One question would be, do you need special licensing to hold the fund raiser in that city? We have chosen San Diego and we need to follow the rules and regulations in San Diego along with those of the state of California and IRS. Any funds that are received must be used for the community book festival and cannot be used for any other purpose per California law. As a non-profit we must register and pay a fee with the Attorney General annually to conduct fund raisers in the State of California. Paperwork showing financial reports on any charitable solicitations from the previous year will also be filed. If not registered with the state of California we cannot solicit funds.
“City and County Ordinances”
In addition to federal and California laws regulating charity solicitation, many cities and counties in California require licensing, registration and financial reporting as a condition to charitable solicitation within their jurisdiction. For a complete list of more than 200 cities and counties that have solicitation ordinances, consult the link to CEB, Advising California Nonprofit Corporations, on the Attorney General’s website.” (California Attorneys General guide for charities) The City of San Diego has many resources on what is needed to do when holding a festival in their city http://www.sandiego.gov/specialevents/pdf/planningguide.pdf, and http://www.sandiego.gov/arts-culture/pdf/ccsd.pdf The City of San Diego, currently is seeing a decrees in the unemployment rate from last year by 19% (FY 2015 Mid-Year Budget Monitoring Report, #15-017 REV )this is a good sign that the economy is ready for a book festival. The city could use this to help boost the economy through this event by attracting people to the city and to help increase literacy, which ultimately will help decrees the unemployment rate. There is controversy if the drought will have any impact on the San Diego economy at the time. It is hard to say if the current drought conditions in Southern California could affect having the festival in San Diego during the month of June. There will not be a significant amount of water usage during this festival other than for drinking and restrooms. Some claim that it could affect industry and businesses, but others state that the limited water usage in San Diego should not affect the economy. (UT San Deigo2015) FY 2015 Small Business Enhancement Program Grant
The Economic Development Division is accepting applications for grant funding from local non-profit organizations that provide unique & specialized programs & services to assist small businesses citywide. Funding is provided by the City's Small Business Enhancement Program for the purpose of creating, growing, & retaining small businesses in San Diego. Applications must be received by Office of Small Business Staff by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 31, 2014. (http://www.sandiego.gov/economic-development/)

There are many ways to get funding from individual donors and grants from city, county, state and federal programs. Funding will be needed for volunteers, materials, applications, and permits for this event. We need books that are in new or like new conditions, and all types of books are welcomed, from children to adult, reference books, text books, to cokkbooks Funding has many forms, it can come from money, in forms of material, and volunteers. The volunteers can be people volunteering their time to set up stands, collect materials, work the stands that are set up, help with clean up, act as security and first aid.
Libraries, Book Stores, and schools can also benefit by promoting the book festival through increased literacy and by placing donation barrels will help to increase their sales and at the same time provide valuable materials for the festival. Local business can benefit through increased consumer spending. With the decrease in the unemployment rate and the rising wages more people will be able to participate in an event such as this bringing in more revenue for the book festival.

Volunteers will be needed to find individual and group donors to help fund this event, by making phone calls, sending out mailers and hanging up flyers. San Diego is a good choice of cities for this type of festival as they promote non-profit organizations that will help improve the community and local businesses. A book festival is a good way to promote and help local businesses by bringing in Authors and readers in to the San Diego area. Not only could this help with the unemployment it can help boost city revenue through transit, hotel and restaurants by bringing others to the city for this event.
Members of the community can donate new and slightly used books, this has already been organized. Since April, several boxes have been placed at local churches, schools, libraries, and book stores in addition to flyers with our name and cause. The community is already coming together and contributing to the drives. Both children and adults are interacting and ready to help volunteer for the event. They can continue to help by going to local businesses to ask for donations of material to build the stations were the different books and booths will be. By category, such as children, adult, reference, fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, text books. Also setting up a phone bank for volunteers to call and ask for individual donations from the public for amounts from $5.00 and up. We will also need help sending letters to corporations asking them for donations, for money, material and volunteers to assist in running the book festival. The volunteers would advise all that Corporations and individuals will be able to see a tax advantage by assisting the book festival.

Having multiple book authors to make donations of money, material and time to attend the festival, ia a great way to bring more people to the festival for a chance to meet their favorite author and ask questions, along with photos and autographs.

Literacy is a person’s ability to read and write. They are important to help function in everyday life, whether it be school, work, or in life itself
1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read and 2/3 of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Over 70% of America’s inmates cannot read above a 4th grade level.
Holding a Nonprofit book fair will bring awareness to this and help expand Literacy in the city.
The San Diego Community Book Festival (a non-profit organization) will host its first event the beginning of June. The goal will be to raise funds

Bringing the community together to promote literacy in the community for all ages. Helping in Literacy will help improve the community in many ways. It will build their confidence, improve work ethic abilities, and ultimately decrease San Diego crime rate. Through the research we have located many different areas to fund a non-profit book festival in San Diego in June. There are many requirements that you must first meet to even begin to have a non-profit event, once these are completed you are able to start the processes of fund raising but you cannot raise funds for any event as non-profit until you have completed them. Once those are completed you can then begin the process of raising funds and applying for grants. The economy of San Diego is stable and as such it is the ideal location to hold this type of a festival, it is diverse and encourages non-profit that will help local businesses to improve in the community. A book festival focusing on literacy will only help to improve and boost an economy that has been on a steady rise since 2008 when it saw its lowest point in unemployment.