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 Retirement: Calculating retirement Needs & Exploring Choices
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Ask Rita: Zero Cell Phone Use While Driving Policy
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A Family and Medical Leave Act Checklist
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Ask Rita: Can an Employee Come and Go Using Family or Medical Leave?
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Is It Time for an Audit?
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Gas Rates, Volunteers, and Justice
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Should the Board Hold Executive Sessions?
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More Than the Olympics: Sports, Nonprofits & Community
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Boards of All-Volunteer Organizations
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Three-Step Immigration (IRCA) Compliance for Employers
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Obama: the Nonprofit Sector’s Favorite Son?
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Overtime Pay for Nonprofit Preschool Teacher?
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The Best Way to Raise Money? Choose a Revenue Strategy
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What Should Nonprofit Boards Know About Insurance Brokers?
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In Search of Unicorns: Finding & Hiring Outside Grantwriters Part 2
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Unicorns Found: Meet Two Grantwriters
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Word on the Street from the Council on Foundations Conference
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The Unrecognized Value of Community Nonprofits, Hiring Grantwriters, Extended Warranties, MTV
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In Search of Unicorns: Finding & Hiring Grantwriters, Part 1
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Nonprofit Budgets Have to Balance: False!
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Don’t Drive, Chew Gum and Use the Phone at the Same Time
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Meaningful Acts of Appreciation for Nonprofit Boards and Staff
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Nonprofits and the Media
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Pay Off My Student Loan or Pay Into a 401K?
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Why is it called Blue Avocado?
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Abolish Board Committees?
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Reasons to Have (& Not to Have) an Attorney on a Nonprofit Board
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Can We Require An Employee To Take Her Meds?
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Promises, Promises: Rural Advocates vs. Big Philanthropy
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Five Ways to Let Government Money Run You Over
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Good Management vs. Good Leadership
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What Do I Say to a Donor or Funder?
Koreatown Youth and Community Center and Program Director Sam Joo defy assumptions about nonprofits serving people and communities of color.
Blue Avocado shares strategies to reduce the amount of unnecessary emails showing up in your nonprofit’s inboxes.
Just Awards “honor” the New York Times and the Rockefeller Foundation for poor coverage and narcissism related to the nonprofit sector.
Men share their thoughts on being male in the majority-female nonprofit world.
A staff member faces a domestic violence situation and her boyfriend threatened to come to our office to harm her. What can our nonprofit do?
Here are some guidelines for advisory committees, as well as a sample letter inviting an individual to join such a group.
Nonprofit board members are often puzzled when it comes to setting the salary of the executive director. Some legal and practical guidelines.
Once acclaimed as a pioneer in philanthropy, the Vanguard Foundation is no more. This is Part I on some of the clues to its sorry demise.
Wondered how to break into the traditional civic leadership networks? Joan Dixon explains why the Rotary may be the unexpected solution.
Cate Steane shares her experience guiding her nonprofit through a harrowing organizational crisis and living to tell about it.
Sometimes you need to raise funds in a hurry. Here are some ways to raise modest funds in a pinch.
Pam David, Executive Director of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, shares lessons learned about philanthropy since coming to it from government.
Conventional approaches to classic conflicts of interest. Model policies that address these concerns. Non-financial conflicts of interest common to many nonprofits. Steps an organization can take to handle conflicts of interest and more detailed sample policies.
Meet two married couple co-executive directors of nonprofits. What organization wouldn’t want two for the price of one?
A fast look at just four critical areas facing American society today: Poverty, race, environment, and democracy.
Pablo Eisenberg shares some reforms that speak to democracy in the United States, and that would be pretty easy for foundations to do.
The Golden Rule of Board Resignations: When you resign, do it the way you would like others to resign. Whatever your reason, resign right.
Do you need to accommodate the use of medical marijuana when making a hiring decision or for current employees?
Blue Avocado shares five “must-have” emergency supplies for nonprofit workers to keep at their desks in case of disaster.
Some valuable lessons drawn from listening, observing, and laughing with women executive directors of color over the years.
Ask Rita explores whether an employee’s work as a surrogate qualifies as a second job that is in conflict with her employer’s agency.
Blue Avocado discusses unusual board terms with Jeanetta Issa, CEO of Child Abuse Prevention in Kansas City.
Policy analyst Rick Cohen discusses the four things we should be worried about with public policy and volunteers.
Robin Erickson, Director of Finance and Administration for an environmental nonprofit, shares her organization’s approach to telecommuting.