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
Tell stories that honor the dignity of our families and embrace our donors to create a more equitable and just world for all.
While receiving services in the community does not always prevent people from being referred to subminimum wage jobs, it does make it difficult.
Interview with Regina Anderson of Food Recovery Network. Challenging students to provide healthy meals and fresh ideas to their communities.
Employers should update their EEO policies to include sexual orientation and gender identity/expression as protected classes.
When it comes to COVID-19, what is that new normal and exactly how are our colleagues adapting? Nonprofit leaders share their experiences.
How roadmaps can help nonprofits launch new ventures, break free from the status quo, and improve conditions for clients, staff, and donors.
COVID-19 created significant economic challenges to nonprofits. Explore the unique characteristics of nonprofits’ financial structure.
Ask Rita explores how nonprofit leaders can act when dealing with an employee making an offensive post on social media.
Here are five phases of a major gift process to help you build relationships with donors.
Explore the role of social capital and discover key attributes and assets of social capital that nonprofits can use to their advantage.
Interview with Nihal Satyadev of The Youth Movement Against Alzheimer’s, addressing Alzheimer’s issues through innovation and advocacy.
A nonprofit is sustainable when it has built long-standing relationships with supporters that are fully committed to the mission.
When reimbursing remote employees, check state laws, whether the expenses are reasonable, and maintain good communication and flexibility.
A lie cannot be taken back. Offering a lie in place of the truth will always make things worse, rendering the claim or the case more costly.
Activist Jose “Che” Ramirez shares some of his ideas about ending homelessness in America and taking on a system bent on holding folks down.
Nonprofits in healthcare are expanding services to their beneficiaries through partnerships and collaborations.
For nonprofits, filing tax form 990 is key to retaining tax-exempt status. Here are the key features of tax form 990 and how to file it.
Interview with Eunice Lin Nichols, Vice President at Encore.org and campaign director for Generation to Generation, delves into bridging generational divides.
What’s the difference between a furlough and layoff? Learn what benefits to offer your employees when closing non-essential facilities during Covid-19.
Tips to consider as you seek to engage your organization in advocacy from someone who’s walked the walk.
Concerned about whether and how to communicate with donors? Use this checklist to ensure your donors stay connected to your nonprofit.
California’s new rules and regulations impact compensation for employees and contractors — find out how in this 2nd part of our series on CA employment law.
How does the CA Fair Employment and Housing Act address issues of race and harassment? Find out in this 3rd part of our series on CA employment law.
How do California’s new rules and regulations impact time off? Find out how in this 4th part of our series on CA employment law.