Support & Services for Launching Your Nonprofit Venture

Give your institution’s new nonprofit entity, foundation, or small business a successful start with expert guidance from Edge’s full scope of incubator services and hosting.

Launching a new venture is both exciting and demanding.
Where does one begin?

There’s a tremendous amount of ‘heavy lifting’ to ensure your new venture gets off to a proper start. Perhaps you need help drafting your initial bylaws or requesting a Taxpayer Identification Number from the IRS and the State of New Jersey. You may also need assistance drafting, reviewing, and submitting IRS form 1023, or seeking recognition of nonprofit status and issuing payroll.

Edge is ready to help with a full scope of incubator services and hosting, including:

Services are available as a la carte, packaged within specific speciality areas, or full service. We invite you to discover the variety of services available to you on the following pages.

New Entity Formation

• Draft initial Bylaws
• Drafting Certificate of Incorporation and submitting final documents
• Request taxpayer Identification number from IRS as well as the State of NJ
• Draft, review, and submit IRS form 1023 to seek recognition of Nonprofit status
• Draft and review business plan, pro forma financials as part of the Form 1023
• File for Business Registration Certificate with New Jersey Department of Treasury
• Register with the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA)
• File forms required for a New Jersey Certificate of Employee Information Report (CEIR)
• State of New Jersey Sales tax Exemption
• Establish banking relationship Edge’s current banking partner or another bank the entity prefers.

Human Resources Assistance

• Hiring activities
• Writing job descriptions
• Posting of job descriptions
• Conduct background checks
• Organize interviews
• Issue payroll to employees
• File employment–related taxes
• Issue W-2s

Venture Opportunity
To help make the college transfer process a success, NJ Transfer helps students who are currently enrolled or plan to enroll in a community college before transferring to a New Jersey four-year college or university. This online resource provides information about transferring academic credits, choosing courses for each degree program, accessing application requirements, and finding transfer contacts. NJ Transfer was looking to drive this initiative forward by rebranding the website and print materials and improving the user experience.

Partnering with Edge
In April 2020, Edge signed a memorandum of understanding with the New Jersey President’s Council to assume management and operation of NJ Transfer. As part of this agreement, Edge provides support, leadership, business services, and strategy development and planning that helps advance the value proposition of the NJ Transfer organization. Now a convenient one-stop resource, students can begin to cultivate their support network of staff at both the 2-year and 4-year level and make more informed decisions about their future.

Venture Opportunity
With a goal of creating new academic and workforce development opportunities within the esports industry and establishing New Jersey as a prominent hub for esports innovation, Stockton University created the Esports Innovation Center (EIC) with support from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). Dedicated to helping shape the future of the esports landscape and attract top talent to the state, Stockton University was seeking support to help provide students with unique competitive gaming opportunities, enhance academic offerings, and foster connections to private sector businesses within the local esports ecosystem.

Partnering with Edge
To help the EIC in their mission, Stockton University partnered with Edge for strategic and business planning guidance, startup services for establishment of the non-profit (501c3), and back-office support for the EIC that includes legal, human resources, and financial services. In addition, the EIC uses esports connectivity via EdgeNet to help deliver a superior esports experience. Edge’s high-performance optical fiber network offers high bandwidth, low latency, and highly available connections, with direct peering connections to all major gaming platforms.

Operations Guidance

• Track all revenue and expenses in accounting software
• Provide monthly financial statements to ED of Entity
• Draft and review standard membership and donation forms
• Help with customer service and collections activities
• Process vendor bills and payments
• Issue IRS Form 1099s to applicable vendors
• Help find external auditors to perform year end audits when required
• Provide technical support for domain name registrations, creating and maintaining a website using WordPress, hosting of email and other productivity tools
• Assist with writing of grant proposals

Provide Benefits

• Issue payroll to employees
• File employment–related taxes
• Issue W-2s
• Medical, dental, and vision
• Ancillary benefits – Long-term disability, life Insurance, short-term disability
• Paid time off
• 401(k) plan

Venture Opportunity
To advance New Jersey’s leadership in the online gaming and financial technology (FinTech) industries, the New Jersey City University (NJCU) created the Fintech & Sports Wagering (FTSW) Innovation Center in partnership with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). The goal was to bring together a community of small, medium, and large companies, startups, entrepreneurs, venture capital, and other investors, university and high school students, faculty, and government.

Partnering with Edge
In 2021, Edge signed a memorandum of understanding with NJCU to provide support, leadership, human resources, business services, and strategy development to help the FTSW Innovation Center take shape. Now a host of a variety of activities, the Innovation Center fosters connections, provides learning and workforce development opportunities, connects employers to talent, and helps launch new businesses in these spaces.

Venture Opportunity
The Virtual Academic Library Environment (VALE), a consortium of 50 New Jersey college and university libraries, is dedicated to furthering excellence in learning and research through innovative and collaborative approaches to information resources and services. In particular, VALE aims to serve New Jersey institutions as a facilitator for information resources and collections and by providing seamless access to open educational resources (OER). With a goal of becoming a clearinghouse for shared electronic academic information, VALE needed help as the organization grew to meet the needs of faculty and students.

Partnering with Edge
In January 2015, VALE connected with Edge during this growing process to allow them to pursue projects they couldn’t legally do in the past. Through this partnership, Edge helped VALE obtain their 501(c)(3) status, and currently employs their program director, reviews contracts, provides payroll and benefits, bills vendors, and invoices their members.

Contact us for expert assistance getting your institution’s new nonprofit entity, foundation, or small business up and running.