The Start-up Series

If you’re deciding between becoming a not-for-profit or for profit, we’ll review the differences between the two and considerations to think about for not-for-profits, LLCs, and S-Corps.
As you partner and begin offering products, these are the basics to make informed decisions about intellectual property.
We’ll go over the key processes to have in place when you start a business to 1) protect yourself 2) save yourself hassle down the road. It’s a must-watch whether you are a team of 1 or have employees.
→ Includes downloadable sample contract and employee hiring paperwork
If you’re a non-profit founder, but the tax/legal aspects of running a not-for-profit scare you, fiscal sponsorship may be for you. We’ll review the basics of fiscal sponsors and how to pick the right one for your organization.

Building sustainable, human-first systems

Building a business is like starting a relationship with whomever you’re serving. Your supporters should receive a mix of short and long-term value back to them to support the growth of partnership. We’ll partner with you to build your short and long-term road map
Wise measurement consultant Ellen Schultz says: “The more narrowly you define success, the harder it is to be successful.”
In this course, Ellen Schultz and Victoria Sale walk you through the PRISM method they developed. You’ll walk away with a concrete plan to demonstrate value to multiple stakeholders (funders, community members, administration, thought-leaders, etc.) for whatever next step you hope to achieve.
Are you doing good work for people, but find most of your funding supports salaries for direct-care personnel and not enough for back-end support to do the work, show your value, track data, etc? If so, join us for this course.
If you’re attending meetings and the solution is: “We need more (social workers, school therapists, psychiatrists, fill-in-the-blank),” take this course before you make any big moves. When a human-first system has a backlog, we often think people are the problem, but more often than not, something about the broader system is causing it to malfunction. This course will teach you how to get to the bottom of what’s really going on, and whether you need “more fill-in-the-blanks.”
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This course is geared towards systems who want to incorporate lived experts in a way that feels respectful and honors what they know without unintentionally doing harm.
OLE co-founder Sonya Soni has spent her career (which includes Harvard, The Center for Antiracism amongst a long list of other “snaps-worthy” achievements), deepening her understanding of how to institutionalize community voice respectfully. She’ll be our guide as we build your competency to invite, elevate, and create structures for lived experts to share their wisdom.
At the conclusion of the course, participants will receive a certificate of completion. To receive a certificate of competency, team members must also participate in a peer learning and practice community.

Have people started asking you to share your wisdom, but you don’t have what you do written down? Sometimes it helps to have an objective party guide you to document your approach.
OLE co-founder Victoria Sale has a talent for developing acronyms, workbooks, and framing what people know in compelling ways to others. It’s our privilege to transform your lived wisdom into tools, documents, and methods that make it easy for you to share.
Who is the best audience for what you know? Is it social service systems, funders, individual community members?
In this course, we review the classic B2B and B2C business models, considerations for each, and ultimately how to select which one is right for you.
Congratulations! If you’re looking at this course, it means you’ve developed something other people find so valuable they want to pay for it!
In this course, we’ll guide you through how to price what you know, create packages, and provide a guide for fair-market value consulting.