Springboard and its community partners design and offer workshops that enable community members to launch change effectively, with a focus on developing financially sustainable change organizations--nonprofits or for profits. These are usually 3-hour workshops, open to anyone. Each addresses one aspect of starting or maintaining a nonprofit change organization. However, our emphasis is on innovation (doing things differently and at the root level) and, developing strategies that provide for an income stream.

In partnership with

Springboard Innovation offers workshops on ways to lead change with smarter, more sustainable organizations.
Our latest workshop was on:

Applying for Tax Exempt Status
to become a 501(c)(3)

This workshop provided a three-hour walk-through of Form 1023, the application the federal government requires to determine whether your organization will qualify as a 501(c)(3), providing a nonprofit organization the full rights of a tax exempt organization.


Cindy Cumfer, a Portland lawyer who specializes in helping nonprofits, lead the workshop. While she can't provide specific legal advice for individual plans in a workshop setting, she educated us on the best way to fill out the form, what the questions mean, and how to write the document for a successful outcome. It was an invaulable, 3-hour session for anyone ready to jump in.

What do the workshops generally include?

The Box Launch Workshops address topics not usually covered in traditional nonprofit start-up. How to be innovative, how to build a personal resource network, how to use technology, or leverage existing assets. And, of course, how to design a sustaining strategy to minimize the time spent preparing grants.

"After attending the workshops our Board convened at our annual retreat. With the help of the members who had attended the workshops, we were able to move beyond the usual handwringing about raising funds from grant writing and event tabling. While the planning process was not necessarily easier, it was a deeper and more thoughtful discussion owing to the increased knowledge of the Board members. We are now working to implement a sustaining strategy as a result."
--Mary Bedard, Chair, Friends of Portland's Community Gardens.