Carma's Place is being built as a national model, not a local charity — but we'd rather you know exactly where we stand today than read a polished story that gets ahead of the facts.
Carma's Place is currently a pre-launch organization. That means, plainly:
| Step | Status |
|---|---|
| Arizona nonprofit incorporation | In progress |
| 501(c)(3) federal tax-exempt determination | Not yet filed / pending |
| Founding board of directors | Recruiting — minimum of three unrelated independent directors, spanning nonprofit governance, real estate/affordable housing, finance, law, and disability services |
| Feasibility study | Not yet commissioned |
| Charitable solicitation registration | Required before any public fundraising campaign launches |
| First property acquisition | Not yet begun — targeted for the organization's third year of operation |
We're publishing this table rather than leaving it implicit because campaign-readiness — building the board, the tax status, and the feasibility work before asking institutions for money — is the single biggest risk to an organization like this, and we intend to be gated by it rather than pretend around it.
Define the mission, the Pathway to Independence model, and the national-replication thesis.
Incorporate as an Arizona nonprofit, file for federal 501(c)(3) status, and adopt bylaws and founding policies.
Seat the founding board, recruit an Executive Director, and stand up the technology and financial infrastructure.
Secure launch capital, establish the first housing through lease or partnership, and welcome the first residents.
Acquire the first property, reach financial sustainability, and prepare the replication playbook for Florida and beyond.
Establish Carma's Place as a fully operational 501(c)(3) with a committed founding board, core staff, foundational policies, the technology platform, and initial capital.
Welcome the first cohort and begin delivering the Pathway in practice: housing, individualized plans, life-skills development, and first employment placements.
Move from leased or partnered space to a durable, appreciating owned asset that anchors the model and guarantees residents' security of tenure.
Build a diversified funding base — earned revenue, government funding, philanthropy, and an operating reserve — so no single source can put the mission at risk.
Document the Carma's Place Model so thoroughly — policies, training, technology, financial structure, operating standards — that a second location can open without reinventing the organization.
Our ten-year aspiration is deliberately ambitious, because the scale of the problem demands ambition — but we hold two different numbers apart on purpose, because collapsing them would overstate what's underwritten today.
| Figure | What it means |
|---|---|
| ~190 residents | Modeled across three properties over ten years in the organization's working financial model (Volume 4) — the number underwritten by current assumptions. |
| ~300 residents | A directional, longer-horizon aspiration from the strategic plan (Volume 1) — not yet backed by a financed property plan. |
Both figures live in our internal planning documents; we publish the distinction here rather than let visitors pick whichever sounds better.
The Board of Directors will hold ultimate fiduciary responsibility for Carma's Place — its mission, its finances, and its integrity. The founding board is being recruited to combine lived experience of disability and caregiving with nonprofit governance, real estate and affordable housing, finance and accounting, law, fundraising, and disability-services expertise.
Carma's Place is being founded by a family that came to this work not from the disability-services field but from lived experience.
Recruiting three or more unrelated independent directors is the organization's most urgent real-world priority right now — ahead of any capital campaign.
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