The idea is to combine both. 

My plan was to do a combination of cold calling with social media marketing and then paying for advertising (like Facebook, Zillow, Home Light).

Combine that with the element of recency bias, and now everyone thinks what happened there was a common occurrence.

I'm doing some research into the feasibility of starting a non-profit that helps people with a certain rare type of cancer (of which I'm a patient too) get to MD Anderson for treatment.

It sounds like you were able to combine several strategies with the value add deal, low down payment 203k loan, and a house hack. 

These modest goals combined with my inexperience in the rehab game have prevented me from looking to seriously into the BRRRR approach as of yet.I would really like to obtain as many income producing sfr and small multi familys as possible and the two biggest obstacles I have found are being able to secure loans and come up with the down payment (I am sure these are typical struggles for other investors out there too) The fact that securing a hard money loan and then rehabbing is a creative way around these struggles really appeals to me.

Now I am thinking if I find a good enough deal, the funding will come (through some combination of family contributions, partners, and loans).Currently I am spending my time finding and analyzing deals.

While we're all here seems like the overall theme is as long as you have hustle.... money and knowledge will follow or you flat out need a combination of all 3 Money, hustle, and knowledge to succeed in REI 

However, if you convert them to individual unit, and you had intentions to rent it out and hold long term, but you get unsolicited offer, you could get cap gain treatment. 

Don't go for one that requires a ton of work unless you plan on using it as "education".Investors fail for a variety of reasons, and here are just a few...1) They try to DIY everything and instead of being real estate investors end up becoming a combination of "go-fers, Mr/Mrs Fix-it, painters, plumbers, electricians, land lords, attorneys, etc".