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.
-
A Bigger Budget and Smaller Butt in Just 12 Weeks!
-
Fundraising Confessions of a Former Camp Fire Girl
-
Life on Planet 501c: Contest Winners
-
What’s the Point of a Nonprofit Board, Anyway?
-
A 7-Point Checklist for Responding to a Request for Family or Medical Leave
-
Ask Rita: Wading through the New Family and Medical Leave Act Regulations
-
Finance Fear Factor Ratios
-
Too Many Nonprofits? Yes – At Least Too Many AIDS Organizations
-
Health Insurance: A Bit of Good COBRA News
-
Too Many Nonprofits? Yes! Clueless in Seattle
-
Volunteer Time Financial Statement Illustrations
-
Tracking Volunteer Time to Boost Your Bottom Line: A Complete Accounting Guide
-
A Devil’s Advocate on the Board?
-
Loans From Nonprofit Board Members
-
Ask Rita: Downsizing from Employees to Independent Contractors?
-
The Car Donation Controversy and the Right Way to Donate Your Car
-
Succession Planning for Nonprofits of All Sizes
-
The 411 on Starting a Car Donation Program
-
Advice for Servicemembers and Veterans Looking at Nonprofit Jobs
-
New Thinking and Talking About Volunteers
-
A Board Leads an Organization Out of the Ashes
-
From Air Force Captain to Nonprofit Fundraiser
-
Nonprofit Layoffs and Furloughs: Do Them Right
-
When You Lose Your Health Insurance Coverage
-
Layoff Stories from Blue Avocado Readers
-
Laid Off From a Nonprofit: Me!
-
The Nonprofit Board’s Role in HR
-
Sample Layoff Letter
-
Will Obamaniacs Change Nonprofits?
-
George W. Bush’s Legacy: A Dramatic Increase in Volunteer Spirit
-
Ten Nonprofits that Shaped the Life of Martin Luther King Jr.
-
New Growth from Old Wood: Heroes & Nonprofits (and Sarbanes-Oxley)
-
Model Document Retention Policy for Nonprofits
-
Sarbanes-Oxley and Nonprofits: Bogeyman in the Boardroom?
-
A 360-Degree Look at the Organization: Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us
-
Speed Up the Board Recruitment Process!
-
Too Many Nonprofits? No — There Aren’t Enough Good Nonprofits
-
Six Things Every Board Member Should Know About the New 990
-
An Insight About Catholic Schools’ Business Model
-
Nonprofit Executive Director Assessment
-
The Secret to a High Impact Annual Report
-
Governance Committees: More and More Common
-
What Information Should Board Members Get?
-
Succeeding With (or Maybe in Spite of) Evidence-Based Practices
-
An Alcohol Problem Holds the Bookkeeping Hostage
-
Nonprofit Email Sign-Offs
-
Nonprofit Embezzlement: More Common and More Preventable Than You Think
-
A Drug and Alcohol Free Workplace Policy for Nonprofits
-
Fun at Work
-
A Steep Road Ahead for Immigration Volunteers?
-
The Board Builds Its Sense of Self: Body-Building for Nonprofit Boards
-
Ask Rita: What Happens When the Office Coffee Comes With Politics?
-
Three Steps to Effective Board Oversight of Insurance
-
A Board Member’s Guide to Nonprofit Insurance
-
If You Don’t Have Time to Save: Nonprofit Retirement Part 3
-
What Nonprofits are Saying About the Bailout: A Fast Roundup
-
Closing Down the Right Way
-
Nonprofit Retirement Part 2: How and Where to Save
-
Thinking the Unthinkable: Maybe We Should Shut Down
-
Community Nonprofits: Katrina’s Unsung Heroes Still on the Job
-
How to Take a Public Policy Stand, with Sample Criteria
-
Nonprofit Retirement: Calculating retirement Needs & Exploring Choices
-
Ask Rita: Zero Cell Phone Use While Driving Policy
-
A Family and Medical Leave Act Checklist
-
Ask Rita: Can an Employee Come and Go Using Family or Medical Leave?
-
Is It Time for an Audit?
-
Gas Rates, Volunteers, and Justice
-
Should the Board Hold Executive Sessions?
-
More Than the Olympics: Sports, Nonprofits & Community
-
Boards of All-Volunteer Organizations
-
Three-Step Immigration (IRCA) Compliance for Employers
-
Obama: the Nonprofit Sector’s Favorite Son?
-
Overtime Pay for Nonprofit Preschool Teacher?
-
The Best Way to Raise Money? Choose a Revenue Strategy
-
What Should Nonprofit Boards Know About Insurance Brokers?
-
In Search of Unicorns: Finding & Hiring Outside Grantwriters Part 2
-
Unicorns Found: Meet Two Grantwriters
-
Word on the Street from the Council on Foundations Conference
-
The Unrecognized Value of Community Nonprofits, Hiring Grantwriters, Extended Warranties, MTV
-
In Search of Unicorns: Finding & Hiring Grantwriters, Part 1
-
Nonprofit Budgets Have to Balance: False!
-
Don’t Drive, Chew Gum and Use the Phone at the Same Time
-
Meaningful Acts of Appreciation for Nonprofit Boards and Staff
-
Nonprofits and the Media
-
Pay Off My Student Loan or Pay Into a 401K?
-
Why is it called Blue Avocado?
-
Abolish Board Committees?
-
Reasons to Have (& Not to Have) an Attorney on a Nonprofit Board
-
Can We Require An Employee To Take Her Meds?
-
Promises, Promises: Rural Advocates vs. Big Philanthropy
-
Five Ways to Let Government Money Run You Over
-
Good Management vs. Good Leadership
-
What Do I Say to a Donor or Funder?
Health care is a society-wide crisis as well as a personal, individual one, and there aren’t ready solutions on either level.
We asked Blue Avocado readers to tell us how you found out you had gotten laid off. Too often grace and consideration aren’t part of it.
While the need for nonprofit services continues even in bad economic times, workers are just as vulnerable to layoffs as any other industry.
The role of the board of directors in personnel or human resource administration is frequently a sticky issue for nonprofits.
A convenient sample letter for use in nonprofit layoff situations when/if they become necessary.
Can the “Obama movement” – with its community organizing and its newly empowered warriors for change – revitalize nonprofits?
Carol Stone applauds President George W. Bush for bringing the visibility, recognition, and importance of volunteering to new heights.
Did you know that hundreds of nonprofit organizations helped make Dr. King who he was? And do you know what they’re up to today?
Heroes don’t act alone: Nonprofits support heroes, and heroes understand nonprofits are impactful platforms for evolving social movements.
A model document retention policy designed to help nonprofits adapt to changing laws around statutes of limitation.
Although Sarbanes-Oxley wasn’t aimed at nonprofits, some saw the law’s passage as a wake-up call for nonprofits.
The 360-Degree Look helps compensate for the board’s limited view of how well the organization is functioning by seeking other viewpoints.
Three easy ways to accelerate the nonprofit board recruitment process by pre-qualifying prospective candidates.
A vibrant, rough-and-tumble ecosystem of nonprofits serves our society best — rather than bemoan its complexity, we should treasure it.
Jeanne Bell shares six things that nonprofit organizations should know about the IRS’ new revised 990 nonprofit tax return.
Catholic schools are having to go to the laity more , and that raises their expenses — hurting inner-city schools.
This executive director assessment form combines results, activities, and attributes. Boards can focus on areas most important to the organization.
There are only four things people look at in a nonprofit’s annual report. Focus on what people actually read.
A governance committee can be an effective way to help define the board’s work, the work of individual members, and strengthen that work.
Blue Avocado provides suggestions for which written documents a nonprofit organization’s board should have.
Nonprofits face increasing pressure to show that their programs are evidence-based. How to “tweak” these practices to your own populations.
Advice for a nonprofit supervisor with a bookkeeper that has missed deadlines and may be coming to work drunk.
Blue Avocado readers share their ways of signing off on nonprofit emails. The consensus is quick, and in keeping with the tone of the email.
Embezzlement is especially painful for community nonprofits. Here are the most common types of nonprofit embezzlement and how you can deal with them.