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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Social Enterprise & Earned Income: A Key To Revenue or a Distraction?
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You Can’t Fire Me, I’m a Volunteer!
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Empowering Next Generation Leaders through Crowdfunding
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Nonprofit Leadership Tips from the Basketball Court
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Some Say Fundraising Is Just Sales: They’re Wrong!
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Fundraising for “Friends of” Organizations
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Ask Rita: Employees Who Cross Jurisdictions: Which Law Applies?
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Why You May Need to Delete Half of Your Nonprofit’s Email List
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Volunteer Management: How to Get it Right
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Ask Rita: How Do I Prevent Sexual Harassment at My Nonprofit?
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Scarcity or Abundance? An Experiment in Collaborative Fundraising
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The New Fundraising Frontier: Impact Investing
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In-Kind Fundraising: A Great Way to Expand Your Budget
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Ask Rita: Are Summer Helpers Employees, Contractors, or Interns?
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Show Me The Money! A Step Toward Solving the Problem of Operating Support
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Succeeding When You’re Small: Lessons Learned from DonorsChoose.org
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Achieving Equity: We Need a New Approach to Funding
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Finding Your Voice As a Nonprofit
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What Millennials Really Want: Professional Development
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The Nonprofit Student Debt Conundrum
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Ego Checks, Spaghetti Sauce, and Other Suggestions for Nonprofit Collaboration
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4 Things Your Nonprofit Can Do to Recruit & Retain Millennial Leadership
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The Gentrification Phenomenon: A Nonprofit Dilemma
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Process, Process, Process: The evaluation model you shouldn’t ignore
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Connection is Key: How Knowledge Sharing Helps Organizations Grow and Prevents Isolation
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Lide Haiti: Helping women and girls help Haiti
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Branching out: Raising more dollars by understanding donors’ differences
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Financial Focus: You Told Us
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In the Boardroom: Asked to Join that Board?
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Data Visualization: User-Centered Design
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Whose Nonprofit Is It Anyway: When a Nonprofit Leader Moves On
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Ask Rita: Is it Legal to Require Nonprofit Employees to Donate Gifts?
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Nonprofit Spotlight: Michigan Nonprofit Association
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Yes, You Really Need One: Why Strategic Planning Matters and How to do it Better
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Point-Counterpoint: Should Nonprofits Be Allowed to Support Political Candidates?
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In the Board Room: Staying In the Loop And Out Of the Weeds
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Building a More Diverse Board with Intention
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Nonprofit Spotlight: The Trenton Community A-Team
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Is Diversity as Good for Business as it is for Communities? New Study Says Yes
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In These Turbulent Times for Nonprofits
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How To Be a Community-Powered Nonprofit
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First-Person Nonprofit: Making the Case (Statement!)
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How Nonprofits Can Work With Their Bankers Amidst Change
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The Financial Outlook for Nonprofits
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First Person: I Am A Young Social Entrepreneur
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Nonprofit Mergers Are Like Falling In Love
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Divorce and the Nonprofit Board Member
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Robert Egger: “Our Sector Is About To Be Hit, And Hit Hard” A Blue Avocado Interview
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Ask Rita in HR: What About Marijuana Decriminalization?
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Gearing Up and (Teaming Up) for a Leadership Transition
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Is Your Nonprofit Ready for a Capital Project?
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Rewrite the Script When These Characters Show Up in Workplace Politics
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Ask Rita in HR: How Do I Stay ADA Compliant When an Employee Has a Disability?
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If Your Board Looked Like Your Community
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Ask Rita: Can I Just Hire Independent Contractors?
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Gifts from the Board Chair
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Promoting a Worthy Cause? Don’t Miss These Six Ideas for Getting Exposure for Your Nonprofit
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Nine Nonprofit Trends that Need to Die
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Everything We’ve Been Taught About Major Gifts is Wrong
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A Tiger Escaped Today, and I’m on the Zoo Board
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Why Don’t Foundations Build Capacity in Fundraising?
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Can We Fire Someone for What They Said in Personal Email?
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A Fork in the Yellow Brick Road to Oz
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From Black Panther to Nonprofit CFO
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Mediocrity Starts with ME (Humor)
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Outdated Job Description May be Getting Us in Trouble
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If You Give a Board Treasurer A Cookie…
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Sample Disclosure of Amount Deductible in Ticket Purchase
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Sample Tax Deductibility Handout for Auction Participants
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Sample Acknowledgement of Non-Cash Donation
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Sample Silent Auction Bid Sheet
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Sample Auction Reporting Checklist for Nonprofits
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A Board Member’s Guide to Nonprofit Overhead
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Crawling Out of the Psychological Depths
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Who’s the Boss? The Board or the Executive?
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How Do You Count Employees… to Determine Which Laws Apply?
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The Very Good but Seriously Flawed Executive Director
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Downward-Facing Budget and Other Nonprofit Yoga Poses
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Following a Founder or Long-Timer Requires a Hard Head
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Nonprofit Auctions: Compliance Guide and Sample Forms
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Surprise! Most Legacy Gifts DON’T Come from Major Donors
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I Followed A Founder: A First-Person Nonprofit Tale
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A Funder’s Message to Other Funders About Overhead
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Transgender Employees: A Respectful & Legal Workplace Approach
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Fundraising in Nonprofits of Color
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Ten Things Boards Do Right (Without Even Realizing It)
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Cow Board Members Give of Their Time, Not Milk
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DIY: Make a Bylaws Cheat Sheet
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First Person Nonprofit: A Day in the Life of a Major Gifts Officer
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Bring Unicorns Back to Our World: The Problem with Outcomes
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How to Staff and Support a Committee
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Mental Health Counselor May Have a Mental Health Problem – What Can We Do?
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Funny and Awkward Nonprofit Board Tales
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Adding It All Up: Nonprofit CFO Study
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The Sustainability Question: Why Is It So Annoying?
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Ask Rita: Do Nonprofits Need Insurance for Volunteers?
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How to Deal with an Office Bully
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Managing Your Nonprofit’s Rating
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Nonprofit Executive Director Gives Advice on Love, Marriage, and Other Stuff
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Extreme Board Makeover
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.