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Donor-Centric Budgeting & Reporting: Top 6 Tips
“Pledge now and get an attractive station tote bag!” Sound familiar? The nonprofit industry I’ve been immersed in for nearly my entire career—public media—is among the most famous for taking a relatively transactional approach to fundraising. While eve …
No Budget, No Mission: A Guide to Basic Nonprofit Budgeting
What has always drawn me to a nonprofit organization is the mission. The mission of an organization speaks in ways that numbers do not. The mission instills hope, meaningful change, and impact. It elicits images of a stronger community and evokes the p …
Time to Fold: Keys to Gracefully Winding Down a Nonprofit
It looked like the Cancer Prevention Institute of California had a royal flush of a winning hand—a 40-plus-year track record of groundbreaking research, a stellar global reputation, 85 dedicated employees, a balanced $13 million budget, and one of the …
#RiskyBusiness: Why Earned Income Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
“When will your organization be sustainable?” This question is asked of nonprofits at an increasingly alarming rate in recent years. Where did this come from and who decided it is such a critical metric of success? More importantly, how can you determi …
Top 10 Nonprofit Board “Worst” Practices
Hey board members, let’s face it, navigating your position can be tricky. On top of your day job, you’ve agreed to contribute your best thinking to a nonprofit. If you don’t have much experience in the nonprofit world, it has its own set of rules, and …
Tips for Surviving the Government Shutdown
The government shutdown is resulting in a severe funding shortfall for many nonprofits, both large and small, which is forcing many organizations to consider furloughs, decreased pay, and even layoffs. How can you determine your best and least painful …
Social Enterprise & Earned Income: A Key To Revenue or a Distraction?
Have you been in a board meeting discussing funding and the challenges of growing revenue and heard someone say, “I know, we should open a for profit venture!” In an era of continuous government funding cuts and foundations seeking “innovation,” many o …
The New Fundraising Frontier: Impact Investing
Capital campaigns can be a slog! Most organizations face similar challenges: donor fatigue, the time it takes to raise funds, rising development costs, and concerns about falling short of your fundraising goals. But what if there were another way to ra …
The Nonprofit Student-Debt Conundrum
At first glance, nonprofits and millennials seem like a match made in heaven. Despite often being judged by our peers, our so-called “entitled” generation puts our desire for positive change above almost all else, seeking jobs that allow us to both do …
Process, Process, Process: The evaluation model you shouldn’t ignore
In a nonprofit’s toolkit, evaluation is key for making meaningful adjustments that cultivate success. As nonprofits, we are expected to be accountable to our boards, our staff, our funders, our partners, and most importantly, our clients or cons …
