I flew back to Oregon on May 2, 2025. Jon picked me up at the airport and drove me back to my house. We had discussions about the Asylum Project. He shared with me all that he had been accomplishing and asked if I’d be willing to help him. I very obviously said yes because it was what I’m trained for! I started by researching what positions were required for nonprofits and, well, pretty much everything I could think of for running a nonprofit.
I told a couple of my friends about the whole thing, and two of them were very eager to join and help. Our CFO flat-out said she wanted to be a part of it in any available capacity. So, I said, “Well…we need a CFO.” She blinked. She expressed some doubts about her abilities, which is when I said, “Hey. None of us has done these roles before. Jon’s never started a business; I’ve never been an Operations manager. You know your stuff when it comes to accounting and bookkeeping. We’re all in the same situation, and it’d be kinda nice if we all grew together.” She absolutely agreed and took on the role.
…and she is a financial slave driver! It’s fantastic.
Another friend wanted to be involved, too, but he wasn’t sure how. Knowing he did something in the tech-o-sphere, I floated CTO to him. He had similar expressions of self-doubt that our CFO had; I did the same spiel, and he agreed.
I’m a Honey-Badger, after all.
June was fast approaching, and Jon and I had plans to go to a week-long medieval reenactment camping event that our CTO happened to be going to, as well. While we were there, we met a woman named Tanya who worked for a nonprofit in helping small businesses get established. We paid her some money to meet with Jon, Becky, and me to figure out what we needed to do to move forward. One of the things was a boot camp she was running in July. “You—” pointing at me “--need to come!” So, I spent two days learning and absorbing as much information as I could. I brought it all back, and we began to develop budgets and meeting schedules and I even pulled in another friend to be our Social Media manager. We were starting to take shape.
…and then I learned we were not a tax-exempt nonprofit. Not yet. We needed to file another form—a 1040EZ—with the IRS. Jon went ahead and did that, and I went ahead and started doing more research.
“...Oh my, good lord! Someone pour me up a double-shot of whiskey…”
There were so many things that had to happen in order for us to receive tax-exempt status. We—and I mean, I—had my work cut out for me.
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