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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Nonprofit Love
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What is Micromanagement and What Isn’t?
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Six Easy, Nearly-Free Ways to Be More Disabled-Accessible
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America’s Dirtiest Job: Nonprofit Telemarketer?
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The Easiest Way to Raise Money: Register with CFC
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Ask Rita: Emma’s Disability is Hurting Performance: Can We Fire Her?
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Five Tips for Better Board Packets
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A Board-Staff Agreement for Financial Accountability
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How Did This Happen? Part 2 of the Vanguard Foundation Story
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How to Hire a Great Accountant for Your Nonprofit
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Korean-American Nonprofit Implodes Diversity Myths
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Board Email: Reduce, Reflect, Rejoice!
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Just Awards: Follow-up to “The Nonprofit Justies”
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On Being Male in the Female-Majority Nonprofit Sector
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Ask Rita: Protecting Staff from Co-worker’s Violent Boyfriend
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What is an Advisory Board and Should We Have One?
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How Much to Pay the Executive Director?
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Decline and Fall of the Vanguard Foundation
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The Board Told Me I Had to Join Rotary
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Through the Valley of the Shadow of Failure
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Raise Money in 30 Days
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Foundations: Fleas or Elephants?
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Nonprofit Conflict of Interest: A 3-Dimensional View
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Married Co-Executive Directors of Nonprofits
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Updates on Some Sacred Cows
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Three Easy Ways for Foundations to Support Democracy
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Golden Rule of Board Resignations
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Ask Rita: Can Employees Smoke Medical Marijuana at Work?
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Bylaws Checklist
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Five Emergency “Musts” for Your Nonprofit
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Ten Things I Learned About Leadership from Women Executives of Color
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Ask Rita: Is being a surrogate mother a profession?
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Board Terms: 1 Year – 3 Years – 2 Years
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Volunteerism Public Policies Can Hurt Nonprofits
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Telecommuting and Flexible Work Arrangements: Do Them Right
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Working from Home: Sidebar on Legal Issues for Nonprofits
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Rockefeller Foundation and NY Times Win “Just Awards”
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Knitting Makes Me a Better Executive Director
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All-Volunteer Organization Resources
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Eight Strategic Mistakes with Memberships
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Attack of the Tax-Exemption Killers
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Nonprofit Business Model Statements
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Who is Responsible for the Board Doing a Good Job?
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True Stories of Grantseeking: A First-Person Nonprofit Story
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What to Do When You Really, Really Disagree with a Board Decision
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Census: Battleground for Money and Justice
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Angry Activist Gets Old & Wise: A First-Person Nonprofit Story
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Merging Nonprofit Voices into a Political Force
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Nonprofit Research that Gets to the Heart
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Ask Rita: Terminate Employee After One Year of Sick Leave?
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Nonprofit Jargon Watch
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Five Internal Controls for the Very Small Nonprofit
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Teach for America: Icon with Feet of Clay?
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Announcing the Just Awards
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Our Executive Director is Embezzling
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Nonprofit Self-Esteem Crisis
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Recruiting for Board Diversity: Part 3 in Diversity Series
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Three Nonprofit Sneezes in Health Care Reform
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Diversity & the Nonprofit Ecosystem: Part 2 in the 3-Part Diversity Series
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A Fresh Look at Diversity and Boards
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Ask Rita: When Swine Flu Hits the HR Department
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Amaze Your Friends with these Nonprofit Factoids
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Can Nonprofit Boards Vote By Email?
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From Artist to Executive Director: Not a Straight Line
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A Board Member “Contract”
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Six Ways to Know If It’s Time to Leave
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L3C: Pot of Gold or Space Invader?
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Ask Rita: Criminal Records Checks for Prospective Staff and Volunteers
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Turning the Tables on Pride
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Fundraiser Edie Boatman Shares Career-Switching Tips
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Attorney Recommends Review Instead of Audit
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An Agreed-Upon-Procedures (AUP) Success Story
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Seven Ways to Reduce Your Audit Costs
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Should Board Members Be Required to Give?
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What to Do with Board Members Who Don’t Do Anything
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Faith-Based Nonprofit Funds: Presto Change-o
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Switching Careers at the Worst Possible Time
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Ask Rita: Model Dress Code for Nonprofits
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Focus on the Destination, Not the Route (Budget)!
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Ten Quick Ways to Invigorate Board Meetings
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Ask Rita: Tattoos and Piercings… and a Model Dress Code
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Alcoholics Anonymous vs. Best Practices
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Social Innovation Fund: Where Is the Money Going?
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Top Ten Questions from Job Seekers… Answered!
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Critical Path for the Board
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A Nonprofit Dashboard and Signal Light for Boards
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Six of Our Board Members Are in Prison
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New 990 Software Release on July 20: Is It Enough?
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Alligators in the Boardroom and Urban Legends About Nonprofits
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Ask Rita: I Have a Bad Boss! Help!
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Boards Should Only Have Three Committees!
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What Are the Board’s Responsibilities for Volunteers?
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The Volunteer Who Couldn’t
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Survival Strategies for the Arts
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.