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
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a collaborative effort and can be tricky to navigate. Consider these tips, and you’ll be on the way to successful P2P fundraising.
Is Founder’s Syndrome stifling the innovation and change in your nonprofit? Explore what it is and how to change it.
How do you successfully transition from one Executive Director to another? This first person account highlights how to do it right.
How to craft messaging that’s effective to engage Millennials? Focus on belief, emotion, & simplicity, and influence how they see themselves.
Is unconscious bias impacting your hiring decisions and the diversity of your nonprofit staff?
Have an employee who needs time off for infertility treatments? Find out the laws that apply and what leave options the employee might have.
How are you motivating donors? Pamela Davis shares her perspective as a grateful donor on what motivates her to give (and what doesn’t).
How do you engage millennials in your nonprofit? Here’s a peek into the millennial mind when it comes to social change efforts.
Is lobbying a dirty word in your nonprofit? It shouldn’t be. How you’re already doing advocacy work and how critical it is to your mission.
A great leader is critical for your nonprofit, but do you know how to hire one? Key skills to look for in your next nonprofit leader.
Use AAA (Ambassador, Advocate, Asker) to engage your nonprofit board members who are not comfortable asking for money.
Nonprofits’ success depends on their ability to assemble a board that is committed to the mission and a strong partner to the executive director.
Taking on diversity and inclusion in your nonprofit? What to do (and not to do) to have your efforts result on long-standing success
If someone alerts you to wrongdoing within your nonprofit, they’re protected under the law. Here’s how to handle a whistleblower situation.
A full sample nonprofit whistleblower policy for nonprofits looking to create such a policy in their organization.
Six strategies that can help nonprofits when embarking on major donor cultivation, even if your development department is tiny.
Survey results and advices on the challenging topic of transitioning from a founder to new leadership within a nonprofit.
Effective nonprofits begin relationships by making emotional connections. The key to growth is to continue to deepen that connection.
Pitfalls to avoid and real screw-ups that can undermine the impact and disrupt the natural flow of nonprofit boards.
Have an effective policy. When a report is made, document the complaint. Take appropriate, swift, and effective action.
How does political polarization impact your nonprofit? This desire to do what is right is what binds us to each other.
Motivate lapsed donors to resume their support for your nonprofit with strategies that make it easy for them to give and stay updated on your progress.
Nonprofits must speak directly and authentically to Young America’s beliefs to have any hope of converting them to highly active supporters.
Question and answer about how an employee’s share of premium payments should be handled, since there are no paychecks on FMLA.