Recent Posts
Navigating the nonprofit world can be challenging. Blue Avocado offers expert guidance on a range of topics — from building strong boards to maximizing your fundraising impact. Explore our latest posts for practical tips, strategies, and solutions to common issues facing nonprofit organizations today.
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Social Enterprise & Earned Income: A Key To Revenue or a Distraction?
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You Can’t Fire Me, I’m a Volunteer!
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Empowering Next Generation Leaders through Crowdfunding
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Nonprofit Leadership Tips from the Basketball Court
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Some Say Fundraising Is Just Sales: They’re Wrong!
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Fundraising for “Friends of” Organizations
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Ask Rita: Employees Who Cross Jurisdictions: Which Law Applies?
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Why You May Need to Delete Half of Your Nonprofit’s Email List
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Volunteer Management: How to Get it Right
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Ask Rita: How Do I Prevent Sexual Harassment at My Nonprofit?
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Scarcity or Abundance? An Experiment in Collaborative Fundraising
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The New Fundraising Frontier: Impact Investing
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In-Kind Fundraising: A Great Way to Expand Your Budget
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Ask Rita: Are Summer Helpers Employees, Contractors, or Interns?
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Show Me The Money! A Step Toward Solving the Problem of Operating Support
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Succeeding When You’re Small: Lessons Learned from DonorsChoose.org
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Achieving Equity: We Need a New Approach to Funding
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Finding Your Voice As a Nonprofit
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What Millennials Really Want: Professional Development
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The Nonprofit Student Debt Conundrum
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Ego Checks, Spaghetti Sauce, and Other Suggestions for Nonprofit Collaboration
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4 Things Your Nonprofit Can Do to Recruit & Retain Millennial Leadership
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The Gentrification Phenomenon: A Nonprofit Dilemma
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Process, Process, Process: The evaluation model you shouldn’t ignore
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Connection is Key: How Knowledge Sharing Helps Organizations Grow and Prevents Isolation
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Lide Haiti: Helping women and girls help Haiti
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Branching out: Raising more dollars by understanding donors’ differences
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Financial Focus: You Told Us
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In the Boardroom: Asked to Join that Board?
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Data Visualization: User-Centered Design
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Whose Nonprofit Is It Anyway: When a Nonprofit Leader Moves On
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Ask Rita: Is it Legal to Require Nonprofit Employees to Donate Gifts?
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Nonprofit Spotlight: Michigan Nonprofit Association
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Yes, You Really Need One: Why Strategic Planning Matters and How to do it Better
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Point-Counterpoint: Should Nonprofits Be Allowed to Support Political Candidates?
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In the Board Room: Staying In the Loop And Out Of the Weeds
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Building a More Diverse Board with Intention
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Nonprofit Spotlight: The Trenton Community A-Team
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Is Diversity as Good for Business as it is for Communities? New Study Says Yes
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In These Turbulent Times for Nonprofits
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How To Be a Community-Powered Nonprofit
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First-Person Nonprofit: Making the Case (Statement!)
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How Nonprofits Can Work With Their Bankers Amidst Change
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The Financial Outlook for Nonprofits
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First Person: I Am A Young Social Entrepreneur
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Nonprofit Mergers Are Like Falling In Love
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Divorce and the Nonprofit Board Member
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Robert Egger: “Our Sector Is About To Be Hit, And Hit Hard” A Blue Avocado Interview
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Ask Rita in HR: What About Marijuana Decriminalization?
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Gearing Up and (Teaming Up) for a Leadership Transition
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Is Your Nonprofit Ready for a Capital Project?
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Rewrite the Script When These Characters Show Up in Workplace Politics
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Ask Rita in HR: How Do I Stay ADA Compliant When an Employee Has a Disability?
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If Your Board Looked Like Your Community
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Ask Rita: Can I Just Hire Independent Contractors?
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Gifts from the Board Chair
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Promoting a Worthy Cause? Don’t Miss These Six Ideas for Getting Exposure for Your Nonprofit
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Nine Nonprofit Trends that Need to Die
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Everything We’ve Been Taught About Major Gifts is Wrong
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A Tiger Escaped Today, and I’m on the Zoo Board
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Why Don’t Foundations Build Capacity in Fundraising?
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Can We Fire Someone for What They Said in Personal Email?
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A Fork in the Yellow Brick Road to Oz
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From Black Panther to Nonprofit CFO
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Mediocrity Starts with ME (Humor)
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Outdated Job Description May be Getting Us in Trouble
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If You Give a Board Treasurer A Cookie…
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Sample Disclosure of Amount Deductible in Ticket Purchase
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Sample Tax Deductibility Handout for Auction Participants
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Sample Acknowledgement of Non-Cash Donation
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Sample Silent Auction Bid Sheet
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Sample Auction Reporting Checklist for Nonprofits
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A Board Member’s Guide to Nonprofit Overhead
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Crawling Out of the Psychological Depths
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Who’s the Boss? The Board or the Executive?
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How Do You Count Employees… to Determine Which Laws Apply?
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The Very Good but Seriously Flawed Executive Director
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Downward-Facing Budget and Other Nonprofit Yoga Poses
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Following a Founder or Long-Timer Requires a Hard Head
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Nonprofit Auctions: Compliance Guide and Sample Forms
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Surprise! Most Legacy Gifts DON’T Come from Major Donors
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I Followed A Founder: A First-Person Nonprofit Tale
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A Funder’s Message to Other Funders About Overhead
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Transgender Employees: A Respectful & Legal Workplace Approach
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Fundraising in Nonprofits of Color
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Ten Things Boards Do Right (Without Even Realizing It)
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Cow Board Members Give of Their Time, Not Milk
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DIY: Make a Bylaws Cheat Sheet
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First Person Nonprofit: A Day in the Life of a Major Gifts Officer
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Bring Unicorns Back to Our World: The Problem with Outcomes
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How to Staff and Support a Committee
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Mental Health Counselor May Have a Mental Health Problem – What Can We Do?
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Funny and Awkward Nonprofit Board Tales
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Adding It All Up: Nonprofit CFO Study
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The Sustainability Question: Why Is It So Annoying?
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Ask Rita: Do Nonprofits Need Insurance for Volunteers?
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How to Deal with an Office Bully
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Managing Your Nonprofit’s Rating
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Nonprofit Executive Director Gives Advice on Love, Marriage, and Other Stuff
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Extreme Board Makeover
How do California’s new rules and regulations impact arbitration? Find out in this first part of our new series on CA employment law.
Audits don’t have to be scary with proper planning. Here’s how to use audits to your advantage and solidify public trust in your nonprofit.
Covid-19 laws are challenging nonprofits to stay compliant. These laws impact sick time and leave, plus issues specific to nonprofits.
Interview with Mando Rayo, discussing how truly serving communities requires representation on boards of directors.
Suddenly finding you need to transition to virtual events? Learn practical tips, resources, and best practices to make your event a success.
Minimize your nonprofit’s risk of violating employment law by being clear about what to do with interns who no longer have academic affiliation.
Sustaining and managing donors is vital for better donor retention and improved fundraising ROI.
Has your workplace become infected by bullying behavior? Here’s how to stop it and restore a culture of professionalism in your nonprofit.
How can you better engage major donors? Learn how to repackage your budgeting and reporting to speak to what matters to your big supporters.
Thinking of starting a mentoring program in your nonprofit? Avoid these pitfalls so you can build a successful capacity building program.
Could your nonprofit benefit from hiring interns? Find out the plusses and pitfalls of an intern program & take our Blue Avocado quiz to see if you’re ready.
How do you become part of young American’s moments? Leverage these four ideas to increase awareness of your issue among millennials!
Need to negotiate with “enemies” to create change? Use these five negotiation tactics to create win-win and turn enemies into allies.
What are registration and disclosure requirements for nonprofit fundraising compliance? Leverage compliance for fundraising growth.
How can nonprofit budgeting help nonprofits maximize the impact of their mission? Learn how to budget with a basic budget template.
How are young nonprofit leaders inspiring change? Learn about Rachel Sumekh’s work, leadership, and approach to challenges in the nonprofit sector.
Your annual appeal has been impacted by the 2018 tax code and donor-advised funds. Learn how and rebuild revenues and funding.
How can your nonprofit encourage Gen Z to get out and vote for the issues important to you in 2020? Messaging this group responds to.
How would you know if it was time to shut down your nonprofit? These lessons learned from closing the Cancer Prevention Institute of California might help.
How do nonprofits respond to the US-Mexico border crisis? Learn the takeaways in this account of how nonprofits are stepping up.
A new test in many states increases your nonprofit’s risk if you are misclassifying contractors as employees. Do your contractors pass the “ABC” test?
To prevent a repeat of history, a new proposal aims to benefit tens of thousands of small and mid-sized nonprofits across the country.
Churches have successfully used updated, technology-enabled strategies to reach out to members; nonprofits can do the same with these helpful tips!
Is your nonprofit chasing the shiny object of earned income instead of social impact? How to tell if social enterprise is right for you.