From Dream to Reality
After several trips to Africa, Erin’s call for donations to help rebuild and fund a Kenyan orphanage turned into an adventure she never expected. Reality sank-in as the young 22-year-old realized what began as a simple act of compassion quickly turned into a complex project.
“I was clueless. I had never done my taxes before. I knew nothing about fundraising or nonprofits. I hardly knew how to even be a nurse… Yet there I was talking to the bank teller, learning how to open an unincorporated business account,” Erin recalls. Her older brother urged her to create a 501c3 nonprofit but young Erin was overwhelmed by even the idea of it. “Absolutely not. I don’t know how to do that. It sounds like too much work,” she naively replied, as if building an orphanage was easy.
Before she knew it, Erin was doing things she never imagined. After some convincing she decided it was time to file for a 501c3. Her now brother-in-law had some prior knowledge about the nonprofit world and sent her step-by-step instructions on how to file a 501c3 in Ohio. Counseled by fellow members of her church, Erin created an Articles of Incorporation and began submitting paperwork to the IRS to make her passion project an official nonprofit. She spent hours filing paperwork and looking up nonprofit tax forms on the IRS website. She even remembers calling the IRS so often that she added them to her phone’s contact list.
Working as a nurse in Cleveland at the time, Erin spent all of her free time engulfed in researching, brainstorming, and planning for the new orphanage. She’d spend late nights pouring over paperwork sprawled across her apartment floor. Erin contacted a friend she had met at Walsh University to brainstorm a name – together they came up with a name – Love in Neglected Communities, also known as Linc Worldwide. It was all becoming real. With the nonprofit application in the works, Erin knew she needed help, so she collected friends with marketing and accounting skills to make up LINC’s first Board of Directors.
Erin spent that entire summer and fall learning all that she could about raising money for LINC. She met with individuals to get advice on fundraising and reached out to her network of family and friends asking for donations. Back then, and admittingly still today, Erin loathed asking for donations. But then she would remind herself by watching videos and looking back at pictures of the children that she was their voice, their advocate. Her passion for their social justice fueled her to start a full blown potential nonprofit. Erin knew that even though these children may be an ocean away, her global neighbors needed her.
LINC’s Story: Part 2
