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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How to Give Feedback to Your Funders—Especially When It’s Hard
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A Primer on Financial Audits for Nonprofits – Live Q&A
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Best Tactics for Finding Government Grants Suitable for Your Nonprofit
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Against the Current: Matt Jorgensen
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Against the Current: Mitch Gruber
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Ask Rita: How Does the Americans with Disabilities Act Impact Our Efforts to Keep Employees Safe During the Covid-19 Pandemic?
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Are Your Nonprofit Organization’s Stories Dishonoring the Families You Serve?
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Hiring People with Disabilities Is Not a Charity: Here’s Why and How to Stop Paying Subminimum Wage
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Against the Current: Regina Anderson
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Ask Rita: U.S. Supreme Court Granted New Protection for LGBTQ+ Employees—What Do We Need to Know?
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Resiliency in the New Normal: Nonprofit Colleagues Share Their Experiences
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Creating a Roadmap to Synchronize the Board to Your Nonprofit Mission
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Assessing Financial Health in the Time of COVID-19
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Aligning Nonprofit Management Teams and Boards During a Crisis Live Q&A
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Investing in Relationships with Donors: 5 Phases of Securing a Major Gift
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Against the Current: Nihal Satyadev
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Seeking Sustainability: How Can Nonprofits Survive the Pandemic?
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Ask Rita: For What Work-Related Expenses Must I Reimburse Remote Employees?
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The Truth, Even When Unpleasant, Can Always Be Explained: Nonprofit Pointers for Conduct in Court
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Against the Current: Jose “Che” Ramirez
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How Can We Help the Board Address Problematic Behavior from the President?
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In the Shadow of the Pandemic, Nonprofits Form Partnerships to Expand the Meaning of Healthcare
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IRS Tax Form 990 [Deadline Extended]: How to File It, When to File It, and Why It’s So Important
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Against the Current: Eunice Lin Nichols
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Ask Rita: During Covid-19, Do We Furlough or Layoff Staff?
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How to Do Legislative Advocacy—and WIN
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Nonprofits on Families First Coronavirus Response Act, Workers’ Comp, Property & Casualty Insurance – Live Q&A
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Communicating with Donors During a Maelstrom: Practical Wisdom on When, What, Who, How, and How Often
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2020 California Employment Law Update #2: Compensation
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2020 California Employment Law Update #3: Fair Employment
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2020 California Employment Law Update #4: Time Off
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2020 California Employment Law Update #1: Arbitration in the Workplace
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What Nonprofits Need to Know About Audits
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Navigating the New Families First Coronavirus Response Act
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Against the Current: Mando Rayo
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Make the Move! Tips for Migrating Your In-Person Event Online
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Ask Rita: Interns Who Lose Their Academic Connections with Your Nonprofit—Are They Really Interns?
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4 Tips for Sustaining and Managing Donors
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Ask Rita: How Do We Stop Bullying Behavior?
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Donor-Centric Budgeting & Reporting: Top 6 Tips
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The Pitfalls of Running a Mentoring Program
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Developing a Successful Intern Program
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Moving Beyond Awareness
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Embracing Unlikely Allies: Sleeping with the Enemy
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Is Your Fundraising in Compliance with State Laws?
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No Budget, No Mission: A Guide to Basic Nonprofit Budgeting
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Against the Current: Rachel Sumekh
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The Effect of the 2018 Tax Overall on Nonprofit Donations and the Rise of DAFs
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Election Year Messages Nonprofits Can Use
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Time to Fold: Keys to Gracefully Winding Down a Nonprofit
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Nonprofit Tales From the US-Mexico Border
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Ask Rita: Are My Independent Contractors Actually Employees?
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Are We Heading Towards Another Nonprofit Insurance Crisis?
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Marketing Automation for Nonprofits and Churches
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Why Earned Income Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
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3 Tips & Tools for Better Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
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How to Cure Founder’s Syndrome
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Successfully Navigating an Executive Director Transition
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Reducing Unconscious Bias in Recruiting
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Ask Rita: What Are My Obligations to an Employee Receiving Infertility Treatments?
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Funder’s Corner: The Grateful Donor
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A Peek Inside the Millennial Mind
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Lobbying & Advocacy: Five Reasons to Get Off the Sidelines
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How to Hire Great Nonprofit Leaders
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Engaging Board Members: AAA Then and Now
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Creating A Board That Works
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A Nonprofit Leader’s Path to Becoming a Diversity and Inclusion Champion
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Ask Rita: How Do We Handle A Whistleblower?
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Sample Whistleblower Policy
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How to Cultivate Big Donors with a Small Staff
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Readers’ Thoughts: Secrets to Successful Succession
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Top 10 Nonprofit Board “Worst” Practices
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Ask Rita: How Do We Handle Harassment by an Outsider?
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Political Polarization & Nonprofits: How Can You Bridge the Divide?
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Win Back Your Lapsed Donors: 3 Effective Strategies
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NextGen Nexus: The New Face of Philanthropy, Courtesy of Young America
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Ask Rita: Health Benefits for Employees on FMLA Leave?
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Remote Team Environments: A How-To Primer
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Managing Big Change: Top Tips for New Executive Directors & CEOs
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Your IRS Form 990 Questions Answered
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3 Online Fundraising Tips for Small Nonprofits
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Community Development: Strategies That Serve
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Funding Innovation: Top Tips
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Ask Rita: Is Terminating an At-Will Employee Risk-Free?
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Finding Your Data Path to Success, Part 2: What We Learned Along the Way
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3 Keys to Mission-Based Workplace Design
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What I Learned as a Funder: Frank Tips for Nonprofits
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How We Built a Nonprofit from Our College Bedroom and What We Wish We Knew
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Ask Rita: The 2016 Federal Exempt Minimum Salary Rule—Gone, or on Pause?
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Funder’s Corner: Finding Your Data Path to Success
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Tips for Nonprofits: Surviving Government Shutdowns
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Sample eWorkplace HR Policy
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The Best Way To Put Clients First Is To Let Them Lead!
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3 Things We Know About Engaging Millennials in Your Nonprofit’s Cause
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Want Equity? Then It’s Time to Break the Rules!
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Ask Rita: When Is Work Time Too Small To Count?
There is no law that mandates employers conduct performance reviews. But most employment attorneys always say, “document, document, document.”
Having 100% of board members make personal donations is a cliché. But, if you have this requirement, make it as easy as possible.
A list of 13 guidelines and practices that you can heed, if you want avoid recruiting terrible nonprofit board members.
A look at six charity raters, who they rate, and the criteria they use to rate them.
Beyond helping nonprofit leaders understand the business model, the Matrix Map can help you strengthen it.
Nonprofit executive directors often want boards to have lively discussions followed by votes that agree with the executive director.
You may have heard of the Dual Bottom Line: the idea that strategic choices must serve both mission impact and financial viability. But how do you turn this idea into a quantitative decision-making tool?
The Affordable Healthcare Act creates sweeping changes in health care law. There are two key provisions which may help your nonprofit.
Nonprofits spend way too much time navigating the complex maze of funding restrictions, time that could be spent delivering services.
The challenges of writing a grant proposal and getting funded evidently go back to colonial times.
“To err is human,” and as we all ruefully know, nonprofit board members and executive directors are typically human.
Organizational problems can bring out the best in people. Through it all, life goes on. It’s your choice how to embrace everchanging moods.
Often, conflicts of interest in nonprofits do not involve personal financial gain, but conflict of loyalty.
Humor columnist Vu Le comments on the joys of meeting scheduling with The Official Rules for Scheduling Nonprofit Meetings.
What you need to create a more nuanced and fair hiring policy regarding criminal background checks and convictions.
Vu Le proposes a new tv show called ED featuring a group of Executive Directors of several nonprofits located in Seattle.
Blue Avocado humor columnist Vu Le gives some fashion advice to us nonprofit folk.
Maybe in some mythic past it was possible to think first about strategic impact goals, and then about how to raise the money. But today we know better: you can’t talk about what you’re going to do without talking about how to get the money.
How can nonprofits properly handle a board member when they cross the line?
Collective Impact (CI) has covered lots of ground, but like taking naps at work, it should be done strategically and sometimes not at all.
A deputy director describes the crisis at an organization where the founding executive director left, and how the organization almost closed.
If you’re on a board, before you turn over the reins, these ideas will help your new executive director get acclimated to their new role.
This booklet was originally published by the National Center for Nonprofit Boards and the Support Center for Nonprofit Management.
Donor-advised funds are believed to incentivize charitable giving. Donors get to pick from a smorgasbord of benefits. Nonprofits struggle.