How We Became a Nonprofit
By Theresa Shay
I began as a yoga business owner with very little interest in business and tremendous interest in yoga. Yoga teaching was a side hustle, as they call it these days, to my job as a schoolteacher. When I left school teaching, I had no plans to develop my yoga business. I simply taught because I loved sharing the beautiful TriYoga® with others. That love gradually grew into more students, more classes, more locations, and enough income that I never returned to teaching middle school.
Some years into this adventure, I was speaking with my friend Roland who ran a successful kitchen cabinet business and a guitar shop before that. When our chit chat moved to yoga business, I offhandedly mentioned that I deposited my yoga income into my personal checking account and paid all bills from there. Roland exploded from his seat. With passionate insistence and clear education, he instructed me to open a business checking account immediately. My personal finances should not be enmeshed with the business, he explained.
This coincided with a question I had been holding for a while: whether to incorporate. As business had increased, so had my personal liability for the activities the business hosted. Multiple instructors taught with me, and we had long outgrown the sole proprietorship model. I dove into the question of incorporation more earnestly after the talk with Roland, intent on understanding the options.
Given that I had only recently established a separate checking account for my TriYoga income, I had much to learn. I bought Business for Dummies. I took a course on Creating a Business Plan. I started interviewing friends who had businesses. I called TriYoga International to discuss my questions with their business accountant Polo. As he spoke, I took notes on his vocabulary as much as principles of business. Polo mentioned that TriYoga International’s nonprofit status meant we could incorporate as a nonprofit and be an official chapter of TriYoga International, as other TriYoga communities in the U.S. had done.
The nonprofit option sounded terrible to me. I was 12 when my mother became the bookkeeper for a nonprofit chamber music organization my piano teacher founded. I grew up listening to stories of Mrs. Coltman and Mom having to raise money, recruit board members, manage meetings, write grants, meet deadlines, file reports, track everything, and provide chamber music programs for kids like me. The nonprofit option was not a draw.
As has been the case for my entire TriYoga life, I was, however, paying attention. People close to me understood that as a nonprofit, the organization could accept donations to help carry out the mission. A generous student had once written me a check for $200, and I had no idea where to list that income when I filled out the sole proprietor’s Schedule C for my taxes. I knew that there were people who wanted to contribute resources to see TriYoga thrive. Still, I couldn’t imagine stepping into the nonprofit world, so I continued researching.
The day the research ended, I was interviewing my friend who had run a successful business and recently established a new one. She had depth of knowledge of many types of business entities, as well as practical steps for initiating the process of incorporation. As she finished sharing, she said, “The best part of having a business is that you can sell it when you are done.”
That was the moment.
My eyes widened. My breath stopped. My stomach dropped. Sell the business? For profit? Transfer leadership in a transaction? “No, no, no!” everything inside me insisted. I did not want to create an entity that could be sold. I did not want to own whatever it was I was forming. I did not want to establish a corporation whose value would be calculated in dollars.
I wanted to build a community that belonged to everyone. I wanted to inspire people to step forward with passion to learn and evolve. I wanted to serve a purpose bigger than my own agenda. I wanted to hand over the creation when the time was right. I wanted my work to be an offering, a gift, a service.
Every aspect of this process was pointing to the fact that despite me, TriYoga in Central Pennsylvania wanted to become a nonprofit. I needed to cooperate as the hands and feet that could make it happen. Fears about what this identity would mean loomed in the shadows, but I knew that I would be fighting the flow not to head in this direction.
Taking on nonprofit status has been an important step for this community. We are now an organization supported by the community, created for the community, thriving as a community, and serving many communities. I learn and grow every day as I follow the guidance that uses this organization to manifest Presence.
I am grateful for the ways each of you supports this organization energetically, physically, and especially, financially. Our energy shines bright, these efforts make a difference, and your generous support is bedrock. On behalf of the organization which exists because of all of us and for all of us and many more, I bow in thanksgiving. On we flow!
Honor the upcoming 25th Anniversary of TriYoga in Central PA
Theresa Shay is the founding director of TriYoga of Central Pennsylvania, where she teaches weekly yoga and meditation online and trains others to teach TriYoga®. Each week, she shares wisdom cultivated from decades of TriYoga study and practice.
Learn more about her here. Theresa can be reached at Theresa@PennsylvaniaYoga.com. Find her on Instagram @theresa_of_triyoga for more inspiration and light.