You truly haven't offered enough detail to obtain the kind of detailed advice
that you desire. My company has served non-profit clients for 14 years and we
have provided organizational assessments for a federal and state agencies.
I'm a formet IRS Tax Auditor and am now a Registered Tax Return Preparer.

Starting a non-profit will cost a fee with the Secretary of state, the state
office of Public Charities and you can apply for an EIN with the IRS but the
process for obtaining a 501(3)(c) is a much more complicated process. You
need to have qualifed officers and offer the IRS a reason valid
organizational purpose, since they have added more focus to issuing
tax-exempt certificates to folk who will fail to remain in compliance with
non-profit reporting.

Your greatest challange as a non-profit will be getting funding. Although you
have volunteered with emergency assistance and homeless shelters, you have
garned some expertise with that industry but your organization will have no
past performance in obtaining grants. So, you will need to either encourage
agencies you have worked with before to hire you new organization to support
them in delivering theie services or as cashloans has indicated, get them to
pay you as a employee or consultant. As a consultant, you can start garnering
business experience and can offer serviceds as a for-profit business, if you
so choose.

File with the IRS and your state for a 501(c)(3). This is a bit expensive to
do and does take time - so, do your homework first. Might be able to get your
local SBDC or SCORE to help you do this for free.

Other option, charge for what yo do now - tell you me that you have to at
least cover your out of pocket costs. Even if you get a non-profit status -
you still might not be able to get grants or other non-profit support to
cover your expenses - but, you might be able to get people to donate to your
organization. I still think that you should ask those you serve to cover some
of your costs.

Your best bet is to create a non-profit business to sustain your activities.
As a non-profit, you can then apply for grants. You can find information on
creating a non-profit on the IRS web site. There is a cost involved and it
takes time.

Hi, federal grants are typically aimed at specific industries and targeted causes identified by the government, such as scientific and medical research, conservation efforts, and so on. Check out this blog for more information. But other options, like loans, may be available to help. Good luck!