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Starting a Nonprofit Organization? 3 Things You MUST do First - YouTube
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Starting a non-profit and helping it
grow so that it can be successful and
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make a huge impact in the world can be a
lot of hard work! So if you're thinking
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about starting a nonprofit there are a
couple things that you should probably
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do before you get started that will help
make sure that you will be successful
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and make a big impact. If you've seen
some of my other videos, welcome back! If
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this is our first time meeting, my name
is Amber Melanie Smith and I am a
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non-profit a founder, executive director,
and speaker on all things social impact
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service and leadership. There's really a
lot that goes into successfully starting
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and growing a nonprofit, but in this
video I want to talk about three key
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things that you really need to do before
you do any kind of paperwork or even
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think of a name for your nonprofit to
make sure that you can be the most
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successful at getting it off the ground
possible. As someone who started a
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non-profit when I was in college and now
currently run the organization full time,
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I definitely know about the steps that
it can take to get something off the
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ground successfully. And I also know
about a lot of mistakes that I made
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early on that if I hadn't made we would
have been able to progress a lot faster -
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and not only becoming financially
sustainable, but make a way bigger
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impact. If you're interested in hearing
about all those mistakes that I made
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starting a non-profit, you can check out my other video on that
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topic - 7 Mistakes I Made Starting a
Non-profit - hope you enjoy! But getting
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back on topic for this video, I'm just
going to dive right into those three key
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things that you need to be doing before
starting a non-profit.
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The first thing you need to do before
you start a nonprofit is to really
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deeply understand the need that you're
trying to address. A lot of people start
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thinking about beginning a non-profit
with some cool idea for a project or
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program or event that they have, but this
is the wrong approach. You don't want to
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start with your idea, you want to start
with the need, and here's why:
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If you aren't really familiar with the
root causes of the problem that you're
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trying to solve as an organization then
you won't know if the idea that you've
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had is going to adequately address that
need, and then you're going to spin your
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wheels doing something that's not
actually going to make the impact that
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you hope it will. So in these beginning
stages you really want to be doing all
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of the reading, all of the meeting with
other people in the community who know
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about this topic, all the research that
you can possibly be doing, to truly gain
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an understanding of the problem that
you're trying to solve in the community -
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Whether it is homelessness or hunger or
improving education - whatever the problem
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that you see in your community that is
compelling you to want to start a
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non-profit in the first place - you need
to become very well-versed on the topic.
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And you're going to want to do this by
looking at a couple of key questions:
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First, you want to know, who is affected
by the problem? Is it children of a
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specific age? Is it animals? A certain
type of animal? Is it the environment?
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Is it a certain neighborhood in the city? So
thinking about the target demographic
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that is being most affected by the
problem in your community or in the
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world that you are trying to address.
Second, you want to be researching and
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studying the underlying root causes
behind that problem that you're looking
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to solve. WHY is there hunger in the
community? What other factors are
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influencing how much hunger there is in
the community? Is it a lack of access to
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food? Is it the distance to drive to a
grocery store? Is it the cost of the food?
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What are the things influencing that
being a problem in your community? And
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third, when trying to understand the problem that
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you're looking to solve, you really want
to know what other issues are
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interconnected to that problem. In the
example of hunger or education you know
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that those things are connected a child
who is trying to study in school can't
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do it very well if they are also hungry
so we find in social change in social
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impact movements that a lot of the
issues we're trying to address are very
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interconnected like a big spider web so
what are the factors that are most
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impacting each other and what are the
gaps in the different areas that you
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might want to solve how do you go about
understanding the need like I said
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before you want to do a lot of research
the Internet is an amazing tool but I
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highly recommend finding experts in your
community or around the world depending
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on the geographical scope of the
nonprofit that you're trying to start
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and talk to them in person gain the
knowledge that they have gained
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firsthand doing the work that you're
trying to do and learn everything that
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you can only when you understand the
problem that you're trying to solve will
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you truly be able to come up with a
mission statement the actions that your
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organization is going to be taking to
address the problem in a way that will
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be effective in solving that problem
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the second thing that you want to do
before starting a nonprofit is to study
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the landscape of other organizations in
the same geographical area that you are
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hoping to serve the fact of the matter
is there are more and more nonprofits
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being formed every day in the United
States and sometimes they overlap and
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mission and compete for the same funding
dollars this means that if you're hoping
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to start a new organization you really
need to know who else is out there doing
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the same work because they might be
competing for the same donor grant
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funding or earned income revenue that
you are competing for and if you find
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that you're starting a non-profit that
replicates the services of another
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organization in the same community you
might discover that it's a really big
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uphill battle to gain any traction to
raise money or to make the kind of deep
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impact that you're hoping to so you
really want to make sure that you're
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focusing on addressing needs that are
not already being addressed by an
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organization that's doing a good job in
the community now I'm not saying that
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competition in every case is bad in some
cases an organization might be out there
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that's not really being very effective
and in that case maybe it's healthy to
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have a little competition I'm all about
innovation and making sure that the most
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important thing is getting done and that
is solving the social issues that we're
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here to solve ultimately we should be
thinking how can we put our non profit
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out of business which means if you're
gonna start an organization have a
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vision of that end goal what would it
take to create a world in which your
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nonprofit doesn't need to exist whether
that's ending homelessness or ending
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human trafficking whatever it may be
your goal is to solve the problem and
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then either disband or move on to solve
another problem the goal is not to
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perpetuate your organization for all
time if that were the case then there'd
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be no point starting at all so if you've
studied the landscape and you have found
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other organizations out there doing what
you are essentially hoping to do and
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solving the problems that you're hoping
to solve you've got a couple decisions
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to make the first is is there any way
that you can partner or collaborate with
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this organization in
reinventing the wheel perhaps you could
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be an asset to them the second thing is
taking a look at are there any major
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gaps that that organization is not able
to fill and if you really want to start
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your own nonprofit perhaps that gap is
what you could focus on to make sure
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that you're meeting a need without
competing for the same funding sources
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as the other organizations
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the third thing that you want to do
before starting a nonprofit is to think
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through your business plan especially
including your plan to be a financially
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sustainable organization a financially
sustainable organization would be one
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that has regular revenue coming in that
you know you can count on and ideally
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you're in a situation where you can not
only count on that to survive at a base
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level but you have a plan for how you're
going to grow and make an even bigger
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impact over time too as I mentioned
before ultimately try to solve the
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problem that you have Excel to solve
when you're thinking about the financial
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component of your business plan there's
no one-size-fits-all for every solution
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a lot of nonprofits think that grants
are just kind of a silver bullet and
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that getting some grants will solve all
of your problems but when in reality
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only about one in ten grants can be
obtained even by professional grant
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writers so grants are very competitive
they're very difficult to get and
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they're definitely not a source of
funding that you should probably rely on
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when you start a non-profit if you're
interested in more information about the
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different ways that a non-profit can
fundraise and explore developing that
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financial sustainability I've got
another video for you fundraising
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strategies when you're trying to start
or grow a non-profit and you can check
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that out the link to there are two main
components of the business plan that you
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want to really focus on at this early
stage and that is once you've figured
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out the what meaning what actions or
activities your organization is going to
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undertake to inevitably address that big
problem that you are setting out to
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address you want to know how are you
going to measure your progress towards
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that goal if it's something like ending
homelessness an obvious way to measure
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that would be that there are no people
experiencing homelessness in the city
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for X number of years in a row measuring
these things is called measuring
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outcomes so an outcome is basically the
difference between where you started
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before you begin your organization and
the difference
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world that has been achieved now that
you've been working at it for some time
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essentially how you change the world so
you want to know how are you going to
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measure your impacts towards your
progress towards the outcomes that
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you're hoping to achieve
is it a changes in attitude or
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perception about something in that case
a survey might be a good way to track
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the changes in attitudes over time when
you survey someone in the beginning you
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survey someone at the end of the year
how has it changed if it's something
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like the example of homelessness that I
just brought up it could be how many
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people have who were chronically
homeless are now no longer on the
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streets and in affordable housing the
second major piece of the business plan
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that you want to think through before
starting a non-profit is of course that
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fundraising piece and how you are going
to plan to become financially
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sustainable as an organization whether
that is through some kind of earned
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income mechanism charging some very
small reasonable amount for items or
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services that you offer or sponsorships
thinking through what is going to be the
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best fit for your specific organization
and again recognizing that there's no
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one-size-fits-all solution for all
nonprofits every organization is
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different and is going to need a
different approach to be successful
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there is of course a ton more that
should go into a business plan for a
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non-profit from your operations to
recruiting volunteers to your marketing
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strategy but if I depict the top two
things it would definitely be how are
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you going to measure your outcomes and
impacts and how you're going to be
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financially sustainable as an
organization and I know that when I was
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first starting a non-profit those are
the two things that I wish I had put a
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little bit more thought into in the very
beginning so are you thinking of
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starting a non-profit and what stage in
the process are you at I'd love to know
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please share that in the comments below
and don't forget to subscribe because
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I'm making weekly videos on nonprofits
social impact service leadership and
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more I really hope that you found this
helpful
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please if you are on Facebook check out
my Facebook group change the world or
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bust we
having conversations there about how to
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make a difference in the world
effectively and it's just really good
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conversation so come join us over there
I hope this helped you out don't forget
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to check out my other videos if you are
starting a non-profit I've got some
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great resources on my channel check
those out and thank you again so much
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for watching
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