How to start a nonprofit in your 20s.

I founded Startup Ventura, a 501(c)(3) tech accelerator, at 24. Since then it has earned a founding investment from the City of Ventura and Candid’s Platinum Seal of Transparency — the highest level, held by fewer than one percent of U.S. nonprofits. Here is what I’d tell anyone in their 20s thinking about starting one.

Start with a problem you’ve watched, not a cause you admire

The strongest nonprofits I know began as an itch their founder couldn’t leave alone. Mine was watching Ventura County raise ambitious, talented people, educate them at strong local universities — and then lose them to bigger startup hubs, because there was nowhere local to build. I didn’t start with “I want to run a nonprofit.” I started with a problem I had watched for years and couldn’t accept. If you can’t describe your problem in one sentence that makes a stranger nod, keep sharpening before you incorporate anything.

Pick the structure on purpose

We chose 501(c)(3) status deliberately, and it shaped everything after. It signals to cities, foundations, and donors that the mission is the point — nobody owns Startup Ventura, and nobody exits it. That credibility is the entire reason a city government could write a founding investment to something run by a 24-year-old. The trade is real accountability: filings, a governing board, and transparency obligations. Take the trade. In your 20s, borrowed structure is borrowed trust.

Recruit a board that’s been where you’re going

My board is made up of operators whose companies carry more than $4.5 billion in combined exit value. None of them joined because of what I had accomplished — I was 24. They joined because the problem was real, the ask was specific, and they could see exactly how their experience would be used. Ask people a decade or three ahead of you. The worst they can say is no, and in my experience people root for a 20-something who shows up prepared and asks directly.

Win one institution early

Our founding investment from the City of Ventura changed how every subsequent conversation went. One respected institution saying “we’re in” converts your project from a young person’s idea into civic infrastructure. Pick the institution whose blessing your mission actually needs — a city, a school district, a hospital, a foundation — and earn it with specifics: what you’ll do, what it costs, how they’ll know it worked.

Make transparency your moat

A founder in their 20s starts with a credibility deficit. Radical transparency is how you erase it. We pursued Candid’s Platinum Seal of Transparency early — the highest level, held by fewer than one percent of U.S. nonprofits — precisely because donors shouldn’t have to take a young founder’s word for anything. Publish what you’d want to see if you were the one writing checks.

Throw the benefit before you feel ready

Our first annual benefit drew 75 supporters and raised funds toward our inaugural cohort of founders launching in spring 2027. I’m a sales guy, so this part came easier to me than the paperwork, but the lesson holds either way: nothing makes a mission real like a room full of people who came because you asked. You will never feel ready. Set the date.

Your 20s are the unfair advantage

You have energy institutions can’t buy, no bad habits to unlearn, and decades to compound what you build. What you don’t have — gray hair, a track record — you borrow: through your board, your institutional partners, and your transparency. My favorite quote belongs to Arnold Schwarzenegger: call me anything, but never call me a self-made man. Nobody builds one of these alone, and asking for help early is the most underrated move in the whole playbook.