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Sample Silent Auction Bid Sheet
Download this form as an Excel spreadsheet to modify: Sample Silent Auction Bid Sheet
Sample Auction Reporting Checklist for Nonprofits
The text of the checklist is below, and you can also download it as a Word doc to customize here: Sample Auction Reporting Checklist for Nonprofits Sample Auction Reporting Checklist for Nonprofits Charitable auctions trigger a variety of compliance an …
Nonprofit Auctions: A Complete Compliance Guide and Sample Forms
Auctions are known for two characteristics: they raise money (sometimes a lot), and they are a ton of work. Blue Avocado contributor and CPA Dennis Walsh gives us a complete, handy compliance guide, and even better: five sample forms to make sure your …
First Person Nonprofit: A Day in the Life of a Major Gifts Officer
So exactly how do you lead someone up to a $1 million ask? The director of major gifts at a large regional environmental organization agreed to tell us everything . . . as long as we didn’t reveal her name or organization. And best of all: post …
Charity Raters Part II: Managing Your Rating
In Part I of this two-part article, we summarized the features and criteria of six of the best known “charity raters” including Charity Navigator, Better Business Bureau, and others. Many readers added thoughtful comments and noted lesser-known raters …
Getting to 100% Board Giving
Having 100% of board members make personal donations is a cliché we don’t like. It’s not a meaningful measure of board member commitment, and typically creates a situation where even the best board members have to be nagged. BUT, if you do have this re …
Charity Raters Part I: Charting the Bad and the Bad
Wouldn’t it be great if there were an objective rating system so that donors could choose the best nonprofits to donate to just as investors use rating agencies to pick the best companies to invest in? Don’t answer; it’s a rhetorical question. Here’s w …
Donor-Advised Funds: Non-Transparent Tax Shelters for Good
Nonprofits are probably most familiar with donor-advised funds (DAFs) at community foundations: a donor gives, let’s say, $1 million to a community foundation and gets a $1 million tax deduction that year. Over the next several years, the donor …
Donor-Advised Funds Background
This brief introduction to donor-advised funds (DAFs) accompanies the Blue Avocado article “Donor-Advised Funds: Non-Transparent Tax Shelters for Good.” In 1931, a New York community foundation created the first donor-advised funds (DAFs). But a …
Organizing the Board to Support the Revenue Strategy
Instead of focusing only on how board members can raise individual donations (or not!), think more broadly (and effectively) about how board members can support the key aspects of your organization's business/revenue strategy:In the quest for funds …
