Creating a Culture That Values Security at Your Nonprofit
Creating a Culture That Values Security at Your Nonprofit is an article from Techimpact that is aimed at helping nonprofits create a strong security culture, one that actively promotes
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Giving USA 2024: The Annual Report on Philanthropy
Giving USA 2024: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2023 is the latest edition of the longstanding annual report on American philanthropy, which found that U.S. charitable giving totaled $557.16 billion in 2023. The overarching finding is that in 2023 giving reached a high in current dollars but did not outpace inflation. Results are provided for giving by individuals, bequests, foundations and corporations. This article gives highlights of the full report, which can be purchased from Giving USA.
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In Abundance: An Analysis of the Thriving Landscape of Collective Giving in the U.S.
In Abundance: An Analysis of the Thriving Landscape of Collective Giving in the U.S. explores the transformative impact of collective giving on philanthropy. Practiced in cultures all around the world, collective giving brings people together to pool their resources, including time, talent, treasure, testimony, and ties — often referred to as the 5Ts. Groups like giving circles, SVP chapters, giving projects, and nonprofit-led circles have long served as democratic and philanthropic learning hubs — bringing historically marginalized voices into philanthropic decision-making spaces, challenging preconceived notions of who is considered a philanthropist, and elevating members as integral actors in the sector’s efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in giving. Data were gathered and the report prepared by a partnership between the Johnson Center, Colmena-Consulting, and Philanthropy Together, and findings underscore collective giving groups’ role in reshaping philanthropic practices, fostering social connections, and amplifying the voices of marginalized communities.
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The 2024 Best NPOs To Work For: Data Shows Satisfaction Slipping in Some Areas
The 2024 Best NPOs To Work For: Data Shows Satisfaction Slipping in Some Areas by
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The 2024 State of Grantseeking Report
The 2024 State of Grantseeking Report spotlights recent developments in funding so that nonprofit organizations can be more strategic in their grantseeking. The free report serves as a valuable analytic tool for organizations to review their grantseeking efforts, report on performance, and plan for the future. The report contains leading-edge information and is a key analytics tool for all organizations. It features data by organizational budget size, mission focus, and government vs. non-government funding. Over 2,300 nonprofit leaders responded to the survey.
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The State of Diversity in the US Nonprofit Sector
The State of Diversity in the US Nonprofit Sector presents new data drawn from a survey taken by Candid of nearly 60,000 nonprofits – Candid calls it the most extensive demographic survey of the nonprofit sector ever undertaken. Overall, just over half (53 percent) of all nonprofit workers in the organizations surveyed were non-White. That’s slightly more than would be true for the US working population, with Black workers, in particular, well-represented in the nonprofit sector overall. But at higher levels of leadership, the picture changes. The survey found that two-thirds of board members identified as White, while 70 percent of CEOs were White. Meanwhile, people identifying as Black and Hispanic represented just 15 percent and 6 percent of CEOs, respectively.
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The 2024 National Study on Donor Advised Funds
The 2024 National Study on Donor Advised Funds includes information about Donor Advised Funds from 2014 to 2022, covering aspects such as account size, age, type, succession plan, donor demographics, contributions, grants, payout rates, and grantmaking speed. The report represents the most extensive independent study on DAFs to date. Thanks to the collective efforts of 111 DAF programs that voluntarily provided anonymized data to the research team, the dataset covers nine years of activity from more than 50,000 accounts, with over 600,000 inbound contributions to DAFS and more than 2.25 million outbound grants from Donor Advised Funds.
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Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits: Community IT Innovators Playbook
Cybersecurity Readiness for Nonprofits: Community IT Innovators Playbook is a publication of Community IT Innovators. This new edition has been completely revised, and it offers a variety of strategies for improving cybersecurity. Nonprofit organizations are challenged to develop an appropriate security plan that recognizes the difficulty in managing the security of their data assets, engages their staff with sensible practices as an important line of defense, and keeps costs effective.
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How Nonprofits Can Nurture Genuine Appreciation For Team Members
How Nonprofits Can Nurture Genuine Appreciation For Team Members is a March 2024 publication of the Forbes Nonprofit Council by Patricia McIlreavy. In this era of heightened competition for talent, remote work environments and increased burnout rates, nonprofit leaders must prioritize staff appreciation and recognition as a strategic imperative. This publication offers a number of strategies for nurturing appreciation.
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In Abundance: An Analysis of the Thriving Landscape of Collective Giving in the U.S.
In Abundance: An Analysis of the Thriving Landscape of Collective Giving in the U.S. is a 2024 national research report on various approaches to collective giving from the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, Colmena Consulting, and Philanthropy Together. Practiced in cultures all around the world, collective giving brings people together to pool their resources, including time, talent, treasure, testimony, and ties – often referred to as the 5 T’s. Groups like giving circles, Social Venture Partners chapters, giving projects, and fundraising circles have long served as democratic and philanthropic learning hubs – bringing historically marginalized voices into philanthropic decision-making spaces, challenging preconceived notions of who is considered a philanthropist, and elevating members as integral actors in the sector’s efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in giving.
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Nonprofit Power: Building an Inclusive Democracy
Nonprofit Power: Building an Inclusive Democracy is a 2024 report by Nonprofit VOTE (NV), an organization focused on providing resources to nonprofits to conduct nonpartisan voter engagement. It argues that nonprofits can and should do more to engage with voters—and that doing so has a measurable, and not-so-subtle positive effect on voter turnout. The report is based on a study conducted by NV concerned with measuring the impact of nonprofit voter engagement on voter turnout. Its outcome was a positive 10-point shift in voters who had been engaged by nonprofits in the 2022 midterm election, increasing their likelihood of voting from 46 percent to 56 percent—a figure that rivals and, in many cases, exceeds the turnout produced by conventional political campaigns.
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Should We Put Out a Statement?
Should We Put Out a Statement? is a 2024 thought paper by Seth Chalmer, examining approaches for thinking strategically about how nonprofits should respond to potentially polarizing world events. Since the October 7 massacres in Israel and subsequent war in Gaza, many nonprofits have struggled to decide whether and how to respond publicly. That decision is more difficult if there are passionate disagreements about the issue among professional teams, boards, funders, and community partners. It’s often impossible to talk about public advocacy without inflaming internal disagreements.
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2023 Nonprofit Organizations Salary and Benefits Report
This comprehensive report provides current salary information on 232 nonprofit positions from entry level to the executive office, and complete data on 94 employee benefit offerings including healthcare, retirement, executive perks, vacation, and much more. It also includes detailed salary and benefits trend data for 2023. The NonProfit Times has been producing this report for over 15 years.
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Five Signs Your Nonprofit is Ready to Reach a Bigger Community
Five Signs Your Nonprofit is Ready to Reach a Bigger Community highlights the different ways nonprofit leaders can improve and expand their organization’s reach and impact through marketing activities. This article for Blue Avocado by Danny Burke and Lauren Kobylarz describes five signs that a nonprofit is ready for a more intensive marketing effort (and also ways to begin brainstorming about how to do so) – it has inspirational stories, it has already developed some initial capacity for marketing, the nonprofit is attracting attention, marketing appears in the organization’s strategic plan, and there is some awareness of how such an effort can benefit the community a nonprofit serves.
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How to Persuade a New Generation to Join Your Nonprofit Board
Highlighting the different ways a nonprofit can persuade a new generation to join its board of directors, this article describes several different methods to keep younger people eager and interested in joining a nonprofit board.
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Raise More Funds by Building Trust Online
Raise More Funds by Building Trust Online is an article for TechSoup by Amy Hooper, who argues that it is easy to underestimate the importance of trust in fundraising. Not only do a nonprofit’s donors trust that a nonprofit will put their money in the right places, but they also rely on the nonprofit to process their donation securely and protect them from cyberthreats. By making small changes to the nonprofit’s online website and brand, you can show prospective donors that you are taking care of their personal and financial details.
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The Art of Grant Budgeting: A Guide for Nonprofit CFOs
This article by Mary Diegert for Blue Avocado describes the process a nonprofit CFO goes through when putting together grant proposal budgets, and how good budgeting can have an impact on potential funders. It includes a number of suggestions for how to create a budget that responds to the interests and priorities of a funder, as well as suggestions about the more technical aspects of budgeting.
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The New Nonprofits
This article by Steven Mintz for Inside Higher Education overviews the ever-growing nonprofit sector – which is now by some measures the third-largest area of employment in the United States, with over 1.5 million workers. It also discusses how academic institutions and faculty can best prepare their students, especially those in the humanities and the “soft” social sciences, for future work and careers with nonprofit organizations.
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Trust in Nonprofits, Philanthropy Continues to Decline, Study Finds
This article highlights results from an Independent Sector study, which shows the increasing decline of the trust Americans have in nonprofits. Additionally, the amount of distrust in philanthropy has also increased significantly.
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Trusting Your Gut: How Leaders Can Responsibly Leverage Instinct
Written by the vice president of global advocacy at the Mozilla Foundation, Ashley Boyd, this article provides insight on how leaders can responsibly follow their gut feelings in leading their organizations. Boyd highlights the importance of other external factors when following instinct.
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15 Nonprofit Leaders Share Startup Strategies To Leverage For Success
Featuring 15 members of the Forbes Nonprofit Council, this article discusses specific methods they’ve leveraged from startups to thrive in the face of constraints and how these strategies have proven instrumental in propelling their organizations toward sustainable success.
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2022 Equitable Nonprofit Workplace Report
2022 Equitable Nonprofit Workplace Report, co-authored by the Center for Nonprofit Management and Envision Consulting, presents current compensation and benefits data for a broad range of nonprofit jobs in Southern California. It also offers insights into the experiences of local nonprofit employees and organizations viewed through an equity lens, and makes recommendations for strengthening equity throughout an organization’s compensation, benefits, and human resources practices.
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A Guide For Attracting, Rewarding and Retaining Volunteers
This article highlights multiple ways organizations can attract volunteers. It also discusses both the benefit and impact that rewarding volunteers may have on retention.
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A Practical Process Guide to Getting and Keeping Your Volunteers
This article highlights multiple ways organizations can attract volunteers and how providing a nonprofit’s volunteers with the same recruitment, training, mentoring, and appreciation as employees can reduce turnover and create a better overall volunteer experience.
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How Nonprofits and NGOs Can Get Real Value From Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is about making decisions that provide clarity and alignment to best put critical resources to use to achieve a nonprofit’s goals. It sounds simple, yet many organizations struggle with the process, not knowing why, where, or how to start. This article can help. It shares four vital elements common to most strategic planning approaches and a number of common pitfalls to avoid.
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How to Start a Nonprofit That Will Change the World
This article by Anne Behk reviews May L. Harris’s How to Start a Nonprofit That Will Change the World: A Nonprofit Counsel Resource Guide. The review highlights the main points that Harris elaborates on in her book, where she details what steps should be taken to set up a successful nonprofit.
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The 5 Truths for Transformational Leaders: How Nonprofit Organizations Thrive, Grow, and Make a Profound Difference
This article by Guy Mika reviews Ed Mishrell’s The 5 Truths for Transformational Leaders: How Nonprofit Organizations Thrive, Grow, and Make a Profound Difference. Mika highlights the 5 truths that Mishrell covers, all aimed at helping nonprofit leaders more effectively run mission-driven organizations.
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5 Steps To Better Email Marketing For Nonprofits
This article reviews five steps a nonprofit can take to invigorate its email marketing activities. The strategies discussed are game-changers that can help the organization achieve a significantly higher ROI from an email campaign.
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6 Ways Nonprofits Can Take Action Amid Economic Uncertainty
This article highlights six different ways nonprofits may take action amid economic uncertainty, to promote the success of their organization in achieving its mission.
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7 Things Nonprofit Leaders Can Say To Funders To Effectively Manage Limited Resources
Many nonprofit executives have difficulty setting boundaries with funders, such as saying no to requests for activities that cannot be adequately supported by the amount of funding provided. Nonprofit leaders are encouraged in this article to assert their expertise and knowledge of their area of work, demanding what is now called “trust-based philanthropy” from funders. Seven specific statements nonprofit executives can make to funders are described, including “we’re allowed to say no” and “we are the experts, and you need to trust us.” By asserting themselves in these ways, nonprofit executives can shift power dynamics and reduce the burden of unrealistic expectations from funders.
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2022 Survey - A Closer Look at LA-Area Nonprofits
The Committee for Greater LA launched the Strengthening LA’s Nonprofit Organizations project in Fall 2022 to encourage the next Mayor of Los Angeles to reset how the City partners with nonprofits that deliver critical health, housing, employment and other services for millions of Angelenos. As part of the project, the Nonprofit Finance Fund interviewed over a dozen nonprofits with direct City contracts, former and current city administrators, and other subject matter experts in addition to analyzing 2022 State of the Nonprofit Sector data for LA City nonprofits to inform recommendations for the Mayor of LA.
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2023 Not-for-Profit Trends Report
2023 Not-for-Profit Trends Report includes polling data collected from 225 executives from across the nonprofit sector. The report, prepared by accounting firm UHY LLP, states that 41.3 percent of nonprofits reported no change in their total contributions over the last 12 months, while 34.9 percent saw declines and 23.8 percent saw increases. Fear of recession was the top reported cause for declining donations.
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Giving USA Annual Report – Press Release
In the Giving USA annual report on philanthropic giving, it is reported that total US charitable giving declined in 2022 to $499.33 billion, following two years of record generosity – the first drop in four decades. Other main trends from the report are summarized in this press release by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. A copy of the full report can be purchased from Giving USA.
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How Nonprofits Can Change Unfair Laws
It can seem like nonprofits have the deck stacked against them and that bringing about meaningful change is next to impossible. Even when changing government policies is the only way forward, the task may appear daunting. Nonprofits are subject to many laws and regulations with unintended consequences that adversely affect the sector’s ability to make a bigger impact. Bringing about change is always an uphill road, but when communities work together, there’s no telling how much they may achieve. The authors use a real example of a successful effort to change policy at the state level to present a roadmap for how nonprofits and their communities can face and win against the Goliath of government policies.
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How to Craft a Data-driven Social Media Strategy for Your Nonprofit
Creating a social media strategy can feel overwhelming. There is so much expert advice out there about how much to post, what types of content are the best, and how to reach new audiences. This advice is often aimed at organizations with dedicated social media folks, or even teams of them. This article details different ways smaller nonprofits may craft a data-driven social media strategy.
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More Nonprofit Employees are Moving to Unionize
This article by Tory Martin and Pat Robinson discusses current trends in the growth of nonprofit sector unions. While most of the national conversation understandably focuses on the role and popularity of unions within the corporate workforce, a parallel movement for unionization is taking place within the nonprofit sector, as well.
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Resource Directory for Nonprofit Capacity Building in Los Angeles
The 20th edition of this Directory (July 2023) offers a starting place to identify individuals and organizations providing capacity-building services and resources to nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles County. This free accessible document includes brief listings of information about: Consultants, Foundations, HR Provider Organizations, Grantseeker Information Centers, Management Support Organizations, Nonprofit Executive Director Coalitions, Nonprofit Management Higher Education Programs, Technology Resources and Volunteer Centers. Contact and brief descriptive information is provided. No verifications or ratings were done of information submitted by those listed, and as said in the Disclaimer at the beginning, no claim is made that the Directory is comprehensive.
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3 Steps to Create a Successful Monthly Giving Program
A nonprofit relies on donations to power its day-to-day operations, from providing essential services to the community to launching new programs and events. However, once these donations are received, is everything possible being done to retain donors for the long term? Many nonprofits struggle to engage existing donors and encourage those they acquire to continue to give year-round. One way to confront this issue is by setting up a monthly giving program. When donors sign up for monthly giving, they’ll automatically donate a certain amount to the nonprofit each month. A monthly giving program can help establish a reliable revenue stream for nonprofits.
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12 Tips For Establishing Telework In Your Nonprofit
The last few years have introduced a number of changes in workplaces across the world, with telework in particular proving that it has staying power as well as innumerable benefits for both employers and staff members if introduced with care and proper planning. Implementing telework into a nonprofit organization requires a considerate approach with all stakeholders in mind to achieve success. To help leaders integrate telework into their own organizations, 12 Forbes Nonprofit Council members each share tips that can aid the creation of a more hybrid- or remote-friendly workplace.
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Bridging the Generation Gap: Why Your Organization Should have an Associate Board (and How to Start One)
Nonprofits are missing an opportunity to engage with the next generation of donors. The author argues that while Gen Z make up over half the U.S. population, they account for only 16% of total charitable giving. The upcoming generation is largely an untapped group of donors and volunteers. Associate Boards are an innovative approach to attracting young professionals to a nonprofit. This article presents four steps to getting started.
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Community Collaboration Towards Solving Rural Social Issues Collaborative
Community Collaboration Towards Solving Rural Social Issues Collaborative leadership is a topic that comes up frequently within the nonprofit realm. It can be a crucial ingredient for effectiveness, particularly for social services organizations, and ethically, it represents an overdue attempt to address systemic imbalances in the ways charitable funding is disbursed. This study of a specific intervention focused on teen pregnancy in Kilifi County, a rural area of Nigeria, was conducted by Maureen Malomba and Margaret F. Sloan, both of James Madison University.
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Empowering Black Leadership Across the Nonprofit Sector
Empowering Black Leadership Across the Nonprofit Sector highlights a number of programs that train and support Black leaders in the nonprofit sector. From national coalitions to community-based organizations, leaders of color are tackling some of the most serious challenges facing the United States.
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Five Programs Advancing Women Leaders in Boston and Beyond
This article expands on the unfortunate reality of women being under-represented in leadership roles within the nonprofit workforce. Although women continue to excel in the nonprofit, education, and philanthropic sectors, they hold far less than 75% of leadership positions in these organizations. Five programs advancing women leaders are highlighted.
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How to Use Email Drip Campaigns to Increase Donations
Donations from individual supporters are an extremely important part of a diversified fundraising strategy for many nonprofit organizations. Increasing donations is an important goal for most organizations. However, maintaining the right cadence of communication can be difficult. Drip campaigns are an effective tool to ensure that a nonprofit stays top-of-mind with potential donors and past donors throughout the year.
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Monthly Giving Can Help Nonprofits Weather Economic Uncertainty. Here’s How to Do It Well
In this article, author Rasheeda Childress highlights the multiple reasons nonprofits should begin and promote monthly giving programs. The benefits include reliable income, high retention rates, and the opportunity to encourage supporters to become major donors in the future.
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Parenting in America Today
Concerns about their children’s mental health top the list of parental worries in the United States, a report from the Pew Research Center finds. Based on survey responses from 3,757 U.S. adults who are parents of at least one child under the age of 18, the report (44 pages, PDF), found that 40 percent of respondents were extremely or very worried that their children might struggle with anxiety or depression and 35 percent were extremely or very worried about their children being bullied. These findings can have direct impact on nonprofits serving children and youth.
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3 Steps to Create a Successful Monthly Giving Program
A nonprofit relies on donations to power its day-to-day operations, from providing essential services to the community to launching new programs and events. However, once these donations are received, is everything possible being done to retain donors for the long term? Many nonprofits struggle to engage existing donors and encourage those they acquire to continue to give year round. A great way to confront this issue is by setting up a monthly giving program. When donors sign up for monthly giving, they’ll automatically donate a certain amount to the nonprofit each month. A monthly giving program can help establish a reliable revenue stream for nonprofits.
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7 Tips for Fundraising on Social Media
In our increasingly interconnected world, about 82 percent Americans use some form of social network. Social media has become an important channel that nonprofits can use to boost their outreach and fundraising capabilities. Social media is a powerful tool to build relationships with supporters and influencers, relationships that will lead to successful nonprofit fundraising. This article contains a list of tips your organization can use to create and launch an effective fundraising campaign that includes social media.
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10 Ways Nonprofit Leaders Can Boost Their Team's Current Skill Sets
With work constantly changing in response to market fluctuations and tech solutions, upskilling is one way to ensure a business’s employees are ready for any challenge. Upskilling often entails investing in education, but these learning opportunities can sometimes come at a high cost. For nonprofits, making these investments can be challenging if the organization doesn’t really have the funds to support additional training.
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12 Tips For Establishing Telework In Your Nonprofit
The last few years have introduced a number of changes in workplaces across the world, with telework in particular proving that it has staying power as well as innumerable benefits for both employers and staff members if introduced with care and proper planning. Implementing telework into a nonprofit organization requires a considerate approach with all stakeholders in mind to achieve success. To help leaders integrate telework into their own organizations, 12 Forbes Nonprofit Council members each share tips that can aid the creation of a more hybrid- or remote-friendly workplace.
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Bridging the Generation Gap: Why Your Organization Should have an Associate Board (and How to Start One)
Nonprofits are missing an opportunity to engage with the next generation of donors. The author argues that while Gen Z make up over half the U.S. population, they account for only 16% of total charitable giving. The upcoming generation is largely an untapped group of donors and volunteers. Associate Boards are an innovative approach to attracting young professionals to a nonprofit. This article presents four steps for getting started.
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Ethical Fundraising
Transparency inspires confidence. Beyond what the law requires, nonprofits can demonstrate their commitment to ethical practices by being entirely transparent with financial information and fundraising practices.
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How to Use Email Drip Campaigns to Increase Donations
Donations from individual supporters are an extremely important part of a diversified fundraising strategy for many nonprofit organizations. Increasing donations is an important goal for most organizations. However, maintaining the right cadence of communication can be difficult. Drip campaigns are an effective tool to ensure that a nonprofit stays top-of-mind with potential donors and past donors throughout the year.
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The Top 3 Cybersecurity Challenges Nonprofits Face and How to Address Them
Safeguarding the sensitive data of members, donors, and volunteers is critical for nonprofit organizations. Yet, the rise of digital transformation and remote work has created new cybersecurity challenges — and IT budgets often don’t keep pace. To maximize cybersecurity while keeping overhead ratios low and operations lean, nonprofits need to understand the top cybersecurity challenges they’re facing and how to address them cost-effectively.
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7 Ideas for Pushing Your Board Forward in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
While nonprofits say they support improving diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) actually doing it requires getting the board to buy-in to the need for culture change. There are many reasons DEIB efforts fail including not being a part of the strategic plan, lack of board champions, and lack of budget. The solution starts with measuring outcomes and holding the executive director and board accountable.
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BNY Mellon Charitable Gift Report 2022
BNY Mellon Charitable Gift Report 2022 assesses the philanthropic landscape, levels of giving over the past five years and donor behavior to provide insights, context, and benchmarks. This report provides analytics and observations on the charitable gift annuity (CGA) and charitable remainder trust (CRT) activity during the calendar year 2021 for 101 nonprofit organizations and the BNY Mellon Charitable Gift Fund. It includes statistics related to life income or planned gifts. Organizations represented included education (56%); faith-based (20%); social services/other (14%); cultural (6%); and healthcare (4%). Data for the report is based on completed gift records in BNY Mellon’s database as of March 30, 2022.
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Candid’s 2022 Nonprofit Compensation Report
Candid’s 2022 Nonprofit Compensation Report captures the most authoritative and accurate executive compensation data from close to 88,000 nonprofits based on IRS data for fiscal year 2020. Published since 2001, this report continues to be the only large-scale analysis of its kind based entirely on IRS data, not surveys. With reliable and accurate information on compensation, organizations can support their recruiting activities while staying compliant with IRS requirements. The report not only shows differences in year-to-year compensation but also allows comparison of executive compensation by gender, organization budget size, cause area, and location (state and MSA). The report costs $449 for individuals and $1,199 for organizations.
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Four Essential Tips to Make Your Nonprofit Mobile Friendly
What does it mean to make a nonprofit organization mobile friendly? From the organization’s website and emails to landing and donation pages, turning a nonprofit into a mobile-friendly one requires focusing on all aspects of its work.
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How Nonprofits Can Unleash the Power of Data to Create a Better World for Women
For centuries, women have struggled to break free of oppression and second-class citizenship. While charitable giving to address this problem is on the rise, philanthropic support for women’s and girls’ organizations is still less than 2% of overall charitable giving, according to a report released by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute. So why has the concept of targeting philanthropy to elevate women been so slow to catch on? Lack of critical data—or in some cases, the failure to make use of critical data—that makes the strongest possible case for support.
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How to Create Customized Nonprofit Donor Experiences
Personalizing interactions with donors is one surefire way for a nonprofit organization to create lifelong supporters of their mission. Interactions that target a large audience do have their place, but tailoring them to appeal to individuals or groups of donors allows nonprofit leaders to build and maintain lasting donor relationships. This article discusses strategies for doing so.
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How to Run a Successful Nonprofit Without Grant Writing
Grant writing is a time and resource consuming activity that saps nonprofit productive capacity. Nonprofits rely on grants as the single revenue source to fully fund their operations. The solution is to build diverse funding streams by fully integrating all services offered into a closed loop nonprofit funding model, as described in this publication.
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Nine Creative Leadership Positions Every Nonprofit Needs
Whether a business is in the for-profit or nonprofit space, certain roles are needed to ensure that the organization continues to operate smoothly. However, business efficiency can be impacted if leaders don’t conduct regular internal audits to ensure that they have the right staff with needed skills onboard. This article discussed strategies for achieving this goal.
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Reproducing Reproducers: Creating a Legacy of Leadership Succession
Creating new nonprofit leaders is not an automatic process. Lack of leadership development will hamper the health and long-term sustainability of the organization. Nonprofit executives often do not cultivate the mindset necessary to reproduce leaders from within the organization. Leadership succession requires understanding the step-by-step cycle necessary to reproduce leaders.
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UHY 2022 Not-for-Profit Trends Report
In order for nonprofits to thrive in the current environment, it’s essential for organizations and their financial services providers to monitor trends and track emerging challenges in the industry. These are presented in the UHY 2022 trends report.
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5 Best Practices for Building a Nonprofit Annual Operating Budget (with Template!)
There are as many forms of nonprofit budgets as there are forms of organizations. Unlike financial statements, which have some rules and guidelines according to accounting standards, the same level of industry-imposed standardization for budget documents and formats doesn’t really exist. While it’s true that the look of the budget should vary according to the structure and function of the individual organizations, there are some best practices that all organizations should use when building their annual operating budgets. This article highlights five of them.
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7 Guiding Principles for a JDEI Policy That Isn’t Just Hot Air. Plus, a Free Sample Policy!
There have been JDEI (Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) assessments, JDEI-driven strategic planning processes, and formal statements in response to important individual events, but strangely there isn’t a lot of guidance for organizations that want to create a binding, board-approved policy that incorporates values, action plans, and accountability. Here are seven guiding principles to go beyond reactive or one-off statements in order to create a DEI policy that indicates a genuine and thorough commitment and has the greatest likelihood to transform your organization and lead to real change.
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10 Strategic Ways Nonprofits Can Influence Giving From Major Corporations
Aligning the social goals of a for-profit with a donation to a nonprofit helps further the social initiatives of both organizations. This article presents 10 ways nonprofits can facilitate this alignment process.
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2022 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey
Nonprofit Finance Fund’s 2022 State of the Nonprofit Sector Survey collected data, stories, and advice from over 1,100 nonprofit leaders across the nation about the impact of the past two years, from the pandemic to events that activated calls for racial justice.
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Beyond ‘X Number Served’
To cure the social sector’s metric monomania, nonprofits must get comfortable with complexity. In this article about measuring nonprofit impact, Mona Mourshed discusses three types of impact – breadth, depth and durability.
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Building a Trust-Based Philanthropy to Shift Power Back to Communities
To realize the deep systemic change that America is demanding, philanthropy must reorganize to build and demonstrate a trust-based culture, invest in community leadership capacity-building, and open up decision-making and information-sharing structures. This shift has important implications for nonprofits and community groups, as well as for foundations and donors.
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Giving USA 2022 Annual Report on Philanthropy
The nation’s longest running, most comprehensive report on philanthropy, The Annual Report on Philanthropy, is a 350+ page report with chapters that provide in-depth analysis of findings on total charitable giving, giving by sources, and giving to major recipient categories. In addition, each chapter provides strategic insights into the latest giving trends and facts.
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How Nonprofits Can Truly Advance Change
Stepping into a nonprofit’s potential to create more visionary change in the world will require significant changes in every aspect of work in the nonprofit arena. And because change happens via collective action by real people, perhaps the most important question to ask is this: If it winds up that what must change is us, are we willing to make that change?
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Measuring Is an Act of Power: A Call for Pro-Black Measurement and Evaluation
This article discusses learning, hopes, and opportunities related to how evaluation professionals in the nonprofit sector can interact best with themes of equity, diversity, inclusion, and antiracism (EDIAR) in their evaluation work.
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Stop Fundraising and Start Building Sustainable Revenue Growth
Fundraising is ultimately about relationships. People have to like you and the people behind you, believe in you and get drawn in by your story. If you are able to communicate authentically and execute a few of these guidelines, a nonprofit can stand out from the crowd and begin to create long-term partnerships, which in turn can create ongoing revenue streams.
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Stories From the Frontier: Breakthroughs, Challenges, and Recommendations from the First Five Years of Open 990 Data
This report describes how making IRS 990s searchable and freely available is empowering nonprofits by reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Making 990 data searchable and available for free to the public has revolutionized nonprofit information and scholarship by massively reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Researchers, nonprofits, government regulators, and journalists are using previously inaccessible data to further transparency, educate donors, advance knowledge, and fuel innovation.
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Transition Tips for Chief Executives and Boards of Directors
This article discusses how to build a stronger relationship between a nonprofit’s board and chief executive when planning transitions.
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Want To Implement A Growth Mindset? 14 Tips For New Nonprofit Managers
New managers are placed in a unique position where they must be quick to continue carrying out the goals of their organization while also encouraging the people they lead. For some, this can mean upholding the status quo, but for others, it’s a chance to expand on how the organization currently operates. While change can bring with it great things, altering the established culture and operations of an organization is not an easy task, especially when a leader attempts to do it alone. Fourteen members of the Forbes Nonprofit Council share in this article their recommendations for new nonprofit managers attempting to implement a growth mindset in their organizations.
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What Makes Narrative Change So Hard?
Nonprofits and funders can go too far in pointing fingers at their own shortcomings. The reality is that they are playing on an uneven psychological field, and this article discusses that uneven field and how to handle it.
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Why Nonprofits Should Consider A Legacy Giving Program And How To Get Started
A legacy gift is a gift that reflects a person’s deepest desires and longings to “leave their mark” after their passing, make a lasting contribution and impact society and the world long after they are gone. This article has practical suggestions on how to start up a legacy giving program.
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4 Nonprofit Content Trends for 2022
In a changing world, many nonprofits are looking to expand their content strategies and find new ways to draw in potential supporters. To help nonprofit leaders keep up with the times and get creative with content strategy, some important trends have been identified for 2022. This article presents four such trends and provides guidance on how nonprofits can make the most of them.
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America’s Nonprofits Get Out the Vote
This publication presents findings from a new survey on the prevalence of nonprofit voter engagement and its intersection with race, leadership, and community served. For instance, seven in 10 voters say they think it is a good idea for nonprofits to offer voter support services, like voter registration, election reminders, and election day transportation. Additionally, nonprofits can effectively reach communities underrepresented at the polls, including low-income, young, and voters of color. Finally, nonprofit voter engagement significantly boosts voter turnout, especially among those otherwise underrepresented in America. The evidence is clear – nonprofit voter engagement is broadly supported, reaches underrepresented communities, and boosts voter turnout to foster a more inclusive democracy.
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Cryptocurrency for Nonprofits: Best Ways to Accept Donations
in 2022 In this article some major types of cryptocurrency are compared, such as Every.org vs The Giving Block vs Engiven. Guidance also is given about the best way for nonprofits to accept donations in cryptocurrency.
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Ethical Storytelling for Nonprofits
When embarking upon what’s known in the nonprofit world as “donation season,” many nonprofits think about putting together a fundraising video or other media that demonstrate the impact of their work, and stories about that impact are often part of the mix. This article presents ways to tell stories ethically as part of a fundraising effort.
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Financing and Evaluating Nonprofits: Mapping the Knowledge Base of Nonprofit Management in the Human Services
This article reviews the literature on two critical aspects of nonprofit management – financing a nonprofit’s operations and evaluating its impact. It is based on an assessment of 328 journal article abstracts derived from a total sample of 2013 articles from the entire publication history of three major U.S. journals of
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Gifts-In-Kind: New Reporting Rules for Nonprofits
Contributions of nonfinancial assets or so-called “gifts-in-kind” (“GIK”) can be an important source of financial support for nonprofits. These are the new reporting rules, which are discussed in this article.
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The Great Resignation—A Call for Change in Organizational Culture
In 2021, a record number of workers resigned from their jobs, including many in the nonprofit sector. Why? If one looks below the surface, it’s clear that organizational culture has significantly contributed to this flight, and this article explains how and why.
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How to Be a Great Supervisor: Insights Learned from 20 Years of Managing
Nonprofits call on employees more than ever to effectively balance their work life with increasing economic, health & safety, family, cultural, and political challenges. How can supervisors help their employees perform at their most productive level amid all the stressors in our lives? How can supervisors maintain consistency in their approach to managing their employees? What benefits can be derived for a nonprofit when supervisors display a thoughtful, positive approach toward managing their employees?
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How to Qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Avoid the Traps
The US Department of Education recently issued a statement on the federal student loan servicer website, myFedLoan.org, that should be noted by anyone with a federal student loan who works full time for a nonprofit, the government, or other public agency (veterans also qualify). Nonprofit organizations can help their workers by connecting them to this knowledge base.
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Los Angeles County's Workforce Landscape: Why Is It So Complicated for the Systems and the Individuals Who Need Services? (Report 1)
Los Angeles County has one of the largest workforce and education ecosystems in the nation Despite an abundance of resources and successes, the region faces many challenges leveraging these resources to advance the economic mobility of the County’s 10 million residents. This report is the first of three reports shared for the LAEDC series, “Bolstering L.A.’s Workforce Ecosystem: A 3-Part Funder Dialogue.” It also has information and insights relevant for nonprofit leaders whose organizations are part of this ecosystem.
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Storytelling for Good
With nonprofits existing in a continually growing virtual space, The Communications Network acknowledges that it can be difficult to reach intended audiences. Storytelling for Good was designed by Hattaway Communications and Threespot with the support of The Rockefeller Foundation and provides resources to learn how to build a nonprofit’s storytelling practices, from basic strategy, to choosing content, to engagement, and evaluation.
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A Three-Step Approach to Protecting Your Nonprofit from Cyberattacks
Nonprofit organizations rely on data for almost every decision they make, from engagement to strategies and program evaluations. Data is a valuable asset. And protecting it from internal or external corruption and illegal access can prevent financial and operational loss. This article outlines a three-step approach to protecting data from cyberattacks.
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Through the Looking Glass: 2022 Narrative Predictions
Nearly all predictions — even those rooted in rigorous research — demonstrate economic and governance narratives struggling in a contest for dominance. Supporting this contest are narratives rooted in the battle between individualism and scarcity and the collective good. Some 2022 narrative predictions and insights can be useful to building narrative power in service of liberation and justice. The forecast can be used by nonprofits to plan, prepare, and apply narrative strategy while guarding against risks that are likely to emerge.
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What Your Nonprofit Needs to Know About Cryptocurrency Donations
With so many ways for nonprofits to accept cryptocurrency donations, there is no need to turn away donors who wish to donate their Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other coins. It’s a new technology that is constantly evolving, and it’s understandable if nonprofits have some apprehension or confusion about how it all works. However, with so many tools available, it is simple to get started.
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Working in Partnership With Opportunity Youth
Leaders of the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions’ Opportunity Youth Forum share lessons from a decade of work achieving better outcomes for young people.
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5 Tips for Creating Effective Online Fundraisers
In general, the most successful online fundraisers prioritize the donor experience from start to finish. Seasoned nonprofit professionals are used to managing donor experience during in-person fundraisers, but doing so in a digital space takes some special considerations. This article shares five tips to prioritize donor experience and make online fundraisers as effective as possible!
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2022 Nonprofit Talent Management Priorities Survey Results
This report summarizes results from a survey that assesses and reveals what nonprofit organizations are most concerned about regarding managing their people resources for 2022. Nonprofit HR researchers collected information pertaining to the full lifecycle of talent management and other related topics such as talent acquisition, culture and employee engagement, and total rewards.
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A Nonprofit's Guide to Getting Your First Government Grant
In total, government provides more than ten times the funding to nonprofits as foundations, especially in human services, health and education, but also in the arts, environment, animal welfare, consumer protection, and elsewhere. But there are lots of workshops and resources on getting foundation grants compared to very few on getting government grants. This guide helps community nonprofits access government funding.
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Best Practices in Sending Year-end Statements to Donors
Best Practices in Sending Year-end Statements to Donors Year-end tax statements provide donors with a convenient summary of their charitable contributions. They also offer an additional opportunity for the nonprofit to express its appreciation. These simple guidelines will help guide such expression, and an example is given.
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Donor Trust Report 2021: Profiles in Charity Trust and GivingCover Image for 2021 Special Report on Charity Impact
The Give.org Donor Trust Report 2021: Profiles in Charity Trust and Giving offers (1) indicators for public trust in the charitable sector, highlighting charity types that experienced noteworthy shifts during 2020; (2) donor profiles for different charity types based on self-reported contribution behavior, including comparisons to the overall donor sample; and (3) information about the public’s openness to solicitation and giving preferences by different generation, racial, and giving-level categories. To access:
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Emerge Ready: Fundraising During & After COVID-19
As nonprofits begin to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, many priorities and concerns have shifted. In May, PND sent a brief questionnaire to our database of thousands of nonprofits. The response was telling, and a clear picture of the challenges ahead surfaced from the organizations surveyed. This white paper details the survey results and what they mean for the future of nonprofits nationwide.
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