I'm pretty burned out. I'm sitting here doing nothing on day 3 of my vacation, hoping I'll be rejuvenated by the end of it. The past few months have been work 7 days a week, from 8am - 9pm.

The past 30 days were busy. I submitted our application for tax-exempt status to the IRS. I filed a trademark application so we can use it to claim social media accounts. _refugee_ helped make our corporate story more attractive and grammatically correct. I'm still procrastinating finishing our website.

Our biggest strides forward were in networking. We've been slowly infiltrating the American Legion. I went as far as volunteering one night to help process and load highschoolers on buses to go to Boys State, which was a tandem effort of Legionnaires and Elks Lodge members. Although I did very little more than check names off a list, somehow the word that spread was that I made it the most efficient bus loading they've ever seen, and so I will be awarded a certificate of appreciation at the next Legion district meeting. I seriously did next to nothing; I think they were just throwing me a bone after I not-so-subtly mentioned our nonprofit.

This in itself is unimportant, aside from being a means to an end. My friend (who is president of our nonprofit) and I work very well together in this regard. We're hitting the Legion at a critical time in their existence, because it's declining. This past weekend, we were invited to the state wide Legion meeting, where we discussed a larger partnership and what that would entail. The Legion has only really ever made such a partnership with the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization, and as such, they aren't sure how to move forward with it. Because of the gap between Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan, the Legion is desperate for young blood to grab the reins and keep them alive and are attracted to us for this reason.

So we're working out a partnership that will be beneficial to both of us. They offered Legion jobs with staff members, they debated making us a subsidiary of the Legion, they debated changing their bylaws to acquiesce to whatever form partnership takes. It's looking like my friend will be sent to South Carolina in a few weeks to attend the national Legion meeting; because of my day job I cannot go. Another of our board members lives in Indiana, where the Legion's national headquarters is, so we have them tactically circled.

Our first fundraiser is in 2 weeks, to be held at our Legion post. We have 3 others scheduled, including a battle of the bands, in which a state senator has offered to be a judge. We have also spoken to a congresswoman who has made an appearance at my day-job nonprofit's events before, and she is willing to show support for us as well. We've reached out to others in the community, such as police foundations and the like, all who have given us their support.

My friend is on cloud 9 because of all of this, but it does not necessarily translate to money. There is still much work to be done as far as our actual organization is concerned. I must write out the details of our programs, which I'm thinking of splitting into two. One who be straight financial assistance in helped homeless veterans pay back debt for emergency dental work they've had to have. The other would act similarly to free dental insurance, for which I need to restrict eligibility until finances allow it to be expanded. These aren't simple things to delineate. I'm also debating a reasonable yearly fee for veterans over an income threshold, so that we can stick to our mission of providing care to all veterans.

Writing out an organizational structure is also difficult. I've been convincing my fellow board members that it's a bad idea dump all of our seed money into renovating an ex-orthodontist's office that was donated to us so that we can provide dental care within it. Why bother when we can contract dentists who already have their own practices equipped with everything, and dental assistants, and malpractice insurance?

Things won't get really serious until we receive our tax-exempt determination from the IRS in a few months. Then we can begin applying for grants and hit fundraising hard, without worrying about the IRS in retrospect or using a Legion post to accept donations on our behalf. In the mean time, we've gotten two interns from a California public university through one of their summer programs to do a lot of the grunt work. I have them researching grants and writing them out, since many are only applications, and then we can simple copy and paste it in when the time comes. They will also intake clients when we start doing dental assessments later this month.

This seems inordinately long, and I hope it's interesting. Although stressful and time consuming, doing all of this has been a lot of fun. I have learned a lot more about my strengths and weaknesses. I really understand what people mean when they talk about how hard it can be to start your own business.