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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A Case Study on Building a Nonprofit Donor Campaign
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Turning NIMBY into YIMBY! (YES in my Backyard!)
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Perfect Together: How to Access Community Television for Your Nonprofit
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Bridging the Generation Gap: Why Your Organization Should have an Associate Board (and How to Start One)
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Welcoming Change, Not Just Dollars: What Every Grant Professional Wants Nonprofit Executives to Know
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Identifying and Mitigating Nonprofit Risk with a Six-Step Crisis Communication Plan
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The Regenerative Principle in Practice for Nonprofit Management
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Egg, Omelet, or Frying Pan: Exploring the Relationship between Business & Altruism in the Independent Sector
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Nonprofits Have Been Right All Along: Community Benefit Models Can Solve Our Toughest Environmental Challenges
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A Beginner’s Guide to Lobbying for Nonprofits
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Cyber Security 101 for Nonprofits – Live Q&A
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It’s Not as Scary as You Think: 10 Easy Steps to Launch a Planned Giving Program for Your Nonprofit
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Grantmaking in the 2020s: Giving Collectively, with Trust
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From Transition to Transformation: Key Lessons from the Pandemic for Nonprofits
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Ask Rita: What to Do When the FMLA Replacement Is A Better Performer
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The Secret to Continuous Innovation
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7 Ideas for Pushing Your Board Forward in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
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None of Us is Getting Out Alive: A Guide to Executive Succession Planning
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You Got the Grant! Now What?
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How to Run a Successful Nonprofit Without Grant Writing
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Reproducing Reproducers: Creating a Legacy of Leadership Succession
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Smart Growth: How to Expand Your Nonprofit’s Programs While Resisting Temptations
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How Nonprofits Can Use Private Capital for Public Good
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7 Ideas to Build a Healthy Board Nominating Process
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Ten Ways to Improve Equity & Increase the Effectiveness of Your Hiring Process
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The Importance of Self-Care as Self-Defense to Nonprofits
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5 Best Practices for Building a Nonprofit Annual Operating Budget (with Template!)
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Navigating the Nonprofit Workforce Crisis – Live Q&A
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Setting Organizational Goals: Does your team know what to do?
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Ensuring Dogs and Cats Get Equal Scratch in Decision-making
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Disrupting the Space of Disaster Philanthropy: A View from the Front Lines
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Up Your Game with Skills-based Volunteering
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7 Guiding Principles for a JDEI Policy That Isn’t Just Hot Air. Plus, a Free Sample Policy!
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Passion Meets Professionalism: Transitioning from Volunteer Leaders to Paid Staff
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The Growth Paradox for Nonprofit Organizations
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Does Your Nonprofit Receive Donations of Services, Supplies or Equipment? Changes are Coming!
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Blue Avocado: What it Takes to Run a Nonprofit
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Ask Rita: An Employee Isn’t Holding Up Their End of the ADA Interactive Process—What Do I Do?
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Transition Tips for Chief Executives and Boards of Directors
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How to Improve Nonprofit Culture Through Mission and Values Realignment
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Role of the Nonprofit CFO in Executive Management: The Watchdog Responsibility
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Role of the Nonprofit CFO in Executive Management: The CFO-ED Relationship
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Why Social Movements Require Entrepreneurial Values
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Ask Rita: When Do I Initiate the ADA Interactive Process with a (Possibly) Disabled Employee?
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How to Unite Your Nonprofit Workforce — and Keep It United Through Misperceptions
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Ethical Storytelling for Nonprofits
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Ask Rita: Religious Exemptions from Regular Work Duties—What Am I to Do?
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Practical Tips for Nonprofit Budgeting
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Forecasting Nonprofit Finances & Pivoting Programs in a Crisis: Download Spreadsheet
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How to Be a Great Supervisor: Insights Learned from 20 Years of Managing
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Can’t Raise Cash Through No VAULT of Your Own?
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Demystifying the Insurance Buying Process – Live Q&A
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Ask Rita: My Employee Has Been “No Call, No Show” for Three Days—Why Isn’t This a Resignation?
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Discussion Corner: Accounting Rules for Silent Auctions from Donated Articles?
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Do Nonprofits Pay Taxes? Do Nonprofit Employees Pay Taxes?
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Ask Rita: How Do We Handle a Supervisor Whose Way of Treating Employees Is Causing Them to Quit?
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Social Transformation for Your Nonprofit – Live Q&A
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The Power of Shared Power: Co-Directing Nonprofits Through Compassion
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A Discussion of The Four Principles of Purpose-Driven Board Leadership– Live Q&A
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Ask Rita: An Employee Took Our Confidential Information for Their Own Personal Use and Won’t Give it Back—What Can We Do?
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To Solve the Problem, Focus on the Desired Outcome: A Formula for Nonprofits
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What a Finance Committee Can Do for Your Board of Directors
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Board Assessments with Sample Management Questions
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Ask Rita: How Do I Navigate Requests for Religious Exemptions from a Requirement to Receive the Covid-19 Vaccine?
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Risk Management for Nonprofits: Copyright
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Don’t Let Internal Controls Slip at Your Nonprofit Organization!
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How to Found and Run a Nonprofit Remotely: Free Template
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Functional Expenses Decreased During Covid-19? How to Prepare for Conversations with Funders
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Ask Rita: We Have Decided on an In-House Investigation—Now, How Do We Do It?
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The Worst Way to Share an Idea is to Say, “I Have an Idea”
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Still Publishing Donor Names? Ditch the List
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Practical Guide to How Nonprofits Can Create Equity in Organizations and Community
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Workplace Discrimination Investigations: Do We Need to Hire an External Professional?
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BEYOND JDEI: Advancing Racial Equity in Organizations – Live Q&A
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Ask Rita: FFCRA Paid Leaves 2021—Help!
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Alleviate Accounting Systems & Staff Training Chokepoints to Power Nonprofit Missions: Part 2
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How to Plan and Execute an Emergency Succession
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How Nonprofits Can Return to In-Person Board Meetings and Retreats
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The Employee Retention Credit: What Nonprofits Need to Know
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Ask Rita: Recording Conversations in the Workplace — Do I Have to Put Up with This?
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Alleviate Accounting Systems & Staff Training Chokepoints to Power Nonprofit Missions: Part 1
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Running Your Nonprofit’s Accounting Department During COVID-19 and After
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Making Nonprofit Strategic Planning (Relatively) Painless
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Re-Opening After Covid-19: What Nonprofits Need to Know about Reasonable Accommodation of Employees with Disabilities
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Creating a More Robust Volunteer Development Program
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Ask Rita: We Can Require Employees to Receive the Covid-19 Vaccine—But Should We?
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New York Nonprofit Employees Get Additional Paid Sick and Safe Leave Rights, Part 2
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New York Nonprofit Employees Get Additional Paid Sick and Safe Leave Rights, Part 1
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How to Use Asset-Framing to Strengthen Nonprofit Work
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How Partnerships Help Nonprofits Stand Out in the Race for Funding
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Ask Rita: Can Our Paid Employees Also Do Volunteer Work for Us?
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How to Build a Compassionate Workplace
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Emotional Labor and Othering: Understanding Terms to Create Equity and Inclusion in the Nonprofit Workplace
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A Primer on Nonprofit Contributions and Revenue from Contracts with Customers
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Ask Rita: What Is a Hostile Work Environment?
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Five Examples of Gen Z Innovators Tackling Social Isolation
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Against the Current: Rudy Espinoza’s Request to President-elect Biden
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Strategic Planning 101 for Nonprofits: Strengthen a Nonprofit’s Board-Executive Director Relationship
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Ask Rita: How Can We Help Our Employee Care for Family During COVID-19?
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Ask Rita: I’m Confused Over EXEMPT vs. NONEXEMPT and SALARIED vs. HOURLY Employees
Nonprofits employees work a lot and often neglect their health. Humorist Vu Le describes yoga poses designed specifically for nonprofits.
Blue Avocado asked for potential interviewees who had followed a founder or a long-time executive. We didn’t expect 58 people to respond.
Blue Avocado contributor and CPA Dennis Walsh provides a handy compliance guide, and five sample forms to make sure your wording is right.
Planned giving professional Greg Lassonde gives us step-by-step instructions for soliciting bequests and planned gifts.
Too often, the focus on nonprofit executive transitions is about the departing executive. Here’s one such story.
There is a lot of buzz around “impact”, “outcomes” and “evidence-based practices”, but not enough about how nonprofits can achieve them.
Transgender and intersexual matters in HR. Work with your employees to make them feel welcome at work, regardless of gender identity.
Conventional fundraising advice is far more doable for the mainstream program than the one based in a community of color.
Boards and board members don’t get credit for some important work they do without even realizing they are doing it.
Cow board members donate hours at meetings and asking others to give milk debate whether or not they should give milk themselves. Moo.
Bylaws Cheat Sheet: If a copy of the by-laws is handy, it’s tedious to have to look over all the legalese for an answer to a simple question.
Major gifts aren’t the right strategy for every organization, but we can still appreciate how this fundraiser talks about her job.
How many outcomes and logic models can fit on the head of a pin? Humor columnist Vu Le enlightens us.
Nonprofit managers should know how to support a committee of volunteers: An Advisory Committee, a Board Finance Committee, or a coalition.
When an employee’s mental health behavior is negatively impacting your workplace, what can you do?
Nonprofit board members tell their tales of woe or whoa: Funny, sad, silly or gut wrenching stories.
A survey of 906 nonprofit finance professionals reveals some surprises about these crucial-but-often-overlooked staff.
The sustainability question at nonprofits: How will you sustain this program or project when funding from the So-and-So Foundation runs out?
Is it a good idea to have insurance for volunteers? I thought volunteers had immunity in both federal and state laws.
Workplace policies that describe prohibited conduct types help manage the distinction between a spurious complaints and bullying situations.
Advice to nonprofits on managing their ratings, and commentary on the impact of the raters as a whole.
Executive directors are problem solvers. But why keep it to just nonprofit problems? We would make great advice columnists!
Executive directors often say that their boards need training. The most effective way to change a board is to change the people on it.
In most states, it is legal to have board meetings by telephone if everyone can hear one another at the same time.