Hi there! I work in nonprofit and am taking a class on grant writing using my professional development funds. One of our assignments is to interview an experienced grant writer and it can’t be from our own organization. I really do want to get something out of this class so I’d like to try and connect with someone and hear from you about your experience and advice. This would be a 30 minute max phone call held next week. Please let me know if you would be willing to connect with me! Appreciate it greatly.

Hey! I work for a very small local nonprofit org in my city. We host free virtual events for people throughout the year featuring "local celebrities" as speakers. But we have this problem where lots of people will sign up for these events but then not actually show up to them. We end up with about one-third of the people who signed up actually attending.

We send out several emails days, hours, and 10 minutes in advance. People even email us and ask questions and express enthusiasm about the events, but then don't show up to them. We make sure to promote them on all our socials and we get a good amount of views, likes, etc. and we screen every attendee who signs up to see if they're bots or scammers or something (most of them are not).

Anyone know how to increase our attendee numbers and get those who sign up to actually go?

I'm struggling to understand why people don't show up seeing as these are free and virtual events that you don't have to physically get ready for or drive to. I don't think people forget since we send reminder emails consistently (but not too often to be annoying), post wherever we can, and offer incentives for people who attend.

I understand that people's plans change, but it's a hassle because our time is wasted prepping for more people than will actually go.

I came in as ED after a dramatic exit that left me with minimal documentation, a deleted email account, and almost total board turnover. We forged ahead and a couple years in I've got a great staff, a comfortable reserve and a full inbox.

An old treasurer just dropped off a box of minutes from my predecessor's 3 year tenure and I'm struggling to process. Board meetings were used almost exclusively to enthusiastically share brilliant ideas that would totally make gobs of money and/or save the world. All with no personal commitment or any follow up, so it's like reading years of groundhog days full of the same great ideas and collective ego stroking that produced nothing.

Meanwhile, the ED was frequently skipping his own paychecks and 'furloughing' staff to make payroll. In the minutes, he reassured the board that the semi-regular furloughs were on paper only -- staff were actually working without pay or clocking out halfway through shifts because 'they just cared so much'. The org had enough service income to barely exist on the brink of failure, as long as staff were exploited, maintenance was ignored, equipment was misused and abused.

Through all of it, the board members celebrated their amazing connections, righteousness, and brilliance. The minutes actually note when the board would burst into applause at each other, like a screenplay.

I admit to not being the most tactful, but I do not understand how the ED allowed a group of adults to applaud themselves while staff relied on the food pantry to survive and the organization committed payroll fraud. I am both furious at him for letting them get away with it, and heartbroken for what he and the staff went through. I am disgusted by the behavior of the board members.

I don't really have a question, just big feelings. I'm having a hard time with the discovery that our organization was so gross, exploitative, and rotten. I still see some of the old board members and I can't decide if they are bad human beings or were victims to some collective, self-serving delusion. I am questioning the ethical foundations of the entire non-profit industry after two decades of hard work and professional development. So please - tell me this was a crazy, rare situation so I feel better about nonprofit work, or tell me you've been through it, so I don't feel so alone.

I'm in Academia these days, but i wanted to relay a message from those that interact with federal data or rely on it for decision making.

BACK IT UP NOW. KEEP A COPY ON A THUMB DRIVE. Data on CDC, NIH, and EPA web pages are already disappearing if they don't comport with the administrations worldview. Energy, climate, and demographic data are next.

Every PI at a very large university has informally been warned(by text late at night) to back up and secure data that comes from federal agencies that has bearing on their research. This is unprecedented and not coming from low level faculty, this is coming from department heads. State agencies are having similar conversations.

I know many of you use HHS, USDA, and other agency data to perform your jobs and serve your communities. We are disgusted, alarmed, and doing what we can to keep going.

This is alarmist, but the alarm bells are ringing.

Is anyone else having issues with DonationXchange ? Is it no longer active?

Hello - looking for suggestions for Employee Assistance Program's (EAP) for small less than 30 employee's nonprofit business in Northern California. Any suggestions?

I’d love to hear about any decision mapping for short term systems that orgs have put in place or are considering during this uncertain time. I’m interested in all of it and am curious about hiring freezes, raises and staffing most.

Hi,

I've been the admin of our CRM about 5 years we use Raisers Edge. If you've used it you know it's a pain and not really usable for non technical folks when it comes to granular giving analyses.

My secondary role is manger of a standalone data department. I'm not a dedicated resource for development, and my department is severely understaffed so I can't delegate anyone on my team to them full time.

The current dev director came from an org where they had their own dev services team, people to take care of everything systemic/technical for them. I try to respond to their urgency/last minute requests as best I can, and I've never refused to do something they asked of me. Having said that, I'm stretched thin. Sometimes I have a couple weeks delay getting things to people. This is bad, I know. I ask to meet monthly with people to get a heads up and people cancel the meetings. I do my best and albeit late sometimes I always deliver and reach out proactively letting people know I'm delayed.

My org overall doesn't push for accountability with using or learning to use our CRM. I understand RE is a pain to work with. That's not an excuse to me to avoid any attempt at trying to use it, especially when you don't have people under you to do things for you.

So with all that context, a couple recent happenings are leaving me stumped:

I had someone on my team who seemed to really want to only do development work. They'd been with me long enough that I trusted their knowledge of the data and figured they'd be a great asset to development. I had multiple convos with the employee and dev director separately about getting her transferred so dev would have someone full time on their team to do all things system. They both talked, everything looked good. At the last minute my former employee pulled out just wasn't available. So they ended up not taking the transfer offer and just left the org. Last month the dev director hired not one but two new folks, both associate directors. Neither of them have ever touched Raisers Edge and seem to barely understand basic spreadsheet navigation.

ATP dev had already complained to my boss about delivery delays from me, so I cannot for the life of me understand why dev director, when given budget for two slots, would not keep one open to get a systems person.

Theres a particular report one of the new hires is "asking" me to start sending to them every two weeks. The report is on a fund that this department has asked for reporting on at least a dozen times in the past 6 months. I've built monitoring reports for them, the hire that left built reports for them; we were working with a consulting firm to assess our systems. They had an RE SME on staff, dev team paid extra money to have them build a report for them....

So when this request comes in, I point this out. I state I'd like to get to the heart of what's not working with these reports. I ask that someone on this team run one of the more recent reports built for them and explain why/how this report doesn't meet their purpose.

The director responds and says "there's a problem the report doesn't run, well follow up with j the consultant to troubleshoot."

And I'm at a loss. Even though I'm overextended I hate for anyone in the org to feel like I won't help them. And I wasn't refusing to do anything here. I asked for more info so I can fix what's already been built and give them the ability to run reporting on their own. In response I get this refusal to collaborate in troubleshooting.

We are going to leave RE but that's a year possibly two years out. I've had multiple convos with my boss about this avoidance of learning the system, and I don't have authority to mandate anyone get training. Meanwhile people keep finding ways to avoid making requests of me or take a "I'll do it myself" attitude if I stumble in delivering. My boss advocates by telling people I'm already stretched thin instead of pushing the rest of the leadership to start making their people learn how to use the CRM. my boss can't make other departments comply but nothing will change if exec leadership doesn't push it.

I'm not looking for them to learn to build queries and reports from scratch on their own But they should at least be comfortable entering date ranges for a report to run. Or understand the output enough to explain why a report doesn't have what they need. We're all understaffed and I'm willing to help but only up to a point.

Am I being unreasonable? I was thinking of either mentioning this to my boss (exec leadership), above both me and dev director), or asking dev director for a 1:1. I know their team is busy right now (were in SoCal, recent wildfirees impacted nearly all of our donor base) but this impasse has been getting wider for months and I want some sort of resolution that will get us out of these misaligned expectations.

I am part of a non profit that helps to feed the homeless and gives them resources to get help.

We'd like to help raise awareness with our content online and I thought interviewing a homeless person would be a good way to share context and the stories of people that are really misunderstood.

Our team is concerned this may be negatively percieved and that it may be unethical.

What do you think?

Hi everyone, I work for a non-profit (newbie), and my salary is funded by a 2-year grant. I’m wondering—what happens when the grant ends? Will I lose my job, or is there usually a plan for securing new funding? Any advice or experiences would be helpful! Thanks.

There's been posts and comments here about our non-profits' response to ICE, so I thought I'd share just a couple of resources.

We Have Rights has a great video series in multiple languages for preparing for and handling ICE. https://www.wehaverights.us/

And ILRC has the Red Cards that migrants can hold. Red Cards have the rights printed on them, which migrants can hand to ICE and stay silent if stopped. Ilrc has gotten massive orders and can't ship them, but they have pdf's that can be printed. https://www.ilrc.org/red-cards-tarjetas-rojas

Trump's border czar complained that immigrants are knowing and exercising their rights, so these resources and knowledges are reaching the community and helping!

My org that focuses on DV, SA, stalking, and human trafficking got notice last night about the new EO 14168 . The ED is freaking out and told everyone that we had to:

1. Remove pronouns and references to pronouns from email signatures

2. Remove all personal items in the office that refer to gender

3. Remove anything in the in-school curriculum about gender

4. Remove everything from the website that is even remotely related to DEI

The ED said that even thought this EO was meant for federal employees, she claims that because we are federal grantees, we are held to the same standard and therefore her hand is being forced in this matter.

My question for this group: is that true?

Hi everyone, forgive me if this is the wrong sub to post in (I tried a lot of searches before landing here and this seemed the most relevant but maybe you can direct me to a better place)

Last summer I booked my first benefit show for a small local non profit that raised about 1400- only 100 short of our goal, which I’m happy about, and the non profit was super happy about.

I’ve booked another benefit for a much larger non profit to take place in March. I’ve tried to cover all my bases, but I’m looking for any other ideas to help make it successful. Due to the size of the non profit that we’re raising money for, I feel like we really need to break 2k. It’s an 80 cap room and the bands and staff alone will probably be about 25 people. We’ve suggested a $20 donation. If we pack the room and everyone donates, that’s $1100. I’ve organized an online fundraiser for people to donate to if they want to give but can’t attend. We’re also going to run a bake sale and raffle, and a local artist donated a couple designs for us to make & sell prints of.

I’d love any ideas you have to help me make this event a success, insight on what I may be overlooking, etc.

Just as a side note, the non profit we’re benefitting has been very thankful for the event and I haven’t requested much from them other than inviting them to come and enjoy themselves or run a table if they’d like to, but I don’t want them to waste any resources on this- they are going to advertise it on their Instagram story to about 100k followers though which should help the turnout.

I'm not referring to the give CTA on your profile, or text in a post, or a CTA on an ad.

I'm referring to a clickable CTA that says "Give" that appears under the organization's name when they post. I can't post an email here but if you look at any post on LinkedIn, next to the logo, you see the org name, then # of followers, then date of posting, right? Well, I'm seeing a non-profit that has a clickable Give CTA right there, between their # of followers and the date of posting, and I cannot figure out how they did that. Anyone know?

Here's a link to a post that has it (in fact, all recent posts for this org have it). https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fondation-de-l%27h%C3%B4pital-maisonneuve-rosemont_bonne-nouvelle-le-gouvernement-f%C3%A9d%C3%A9ral-a-activity-7283130231488409600-AFbv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Y’all these are some hard times.

I’m a director level staff at a civil rights focused org and not only does all this impact our work, but everyone on our team has been personally impacted on the state and federal level policy shifts over the past month.

I try to keep a brave face on in front of the staff, but all of this is awful on every level. How do we prevent burn out in times like these? About half our staff has birthright citizenship and mixed status families- one of them got targeted for a mass harassment campaign from anti-immigrant extremists. A third of our staff impacted by the anti-trans policies that have been issued. We had to turn off all our social media comments because we’re just being swarmed with the most vile, hateful, trash that you’ve ever seen.

On top of all the personal impact, the folks we serve in our professional capacity are also having a rough time (to say the least) and come to our staff for help, but there’s a lot out there we just don’t have the power to change right now. we’re doing our best with harm reduction work, but it’s still really heartbreaking.

I’m sure we’re not the only organization going through this kind of thing. How are you all coping with this? How are you supporting your staff? How are you giving hope to the communities you serve so they can at least try to survive until things get better?

Does your org use the State Dept rates for per diem payouts or another method and if so what? Our rates are drastically lower and also complicated as some items are allowed to be expensed on top of per diem. I'm trying to figure out how to boost per diem rates AND hoping to simplify the accounting process by setting a single rate per country location. I'm finding it difficult to narrow it down and stay within budget as the standard State Dept rates are much too high. Would love to hear what other orgs are doing amd any suggestions you might have.

I'm starting a youth arts organization and would like to publish personal works to help with funding. For example, produce a play and 70% goes toward the nonprofit for funding. I read that a sponsor for a nonprofit won't be able to expect a "substantial return benefit," if so, and I feel as if my publishing company would "benefit" by association. I just want to know if it's legal/ethical.

Tl;dr can I start a company with most of the profits going toward a nonprofit I founded ethically/legally

Got laid off (org is broke). Been doing interviews and not mentioning anything as I’ve only just left.

But now I have an interview at an org that partners with my old one. They know me well from my now defunct position. They might even email me and find out my email has been cut or get redirected to my old boss.

So I feel like I can’t NOT tell them?? They’ll eventually find out. Or should I say something vague like I’ve decided to take time off work to focus on my next steps?

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing this, to my law school, to colleagues, to anyone who would listen, but I feel like the message always gets lost. So here it is.

I don’t come from a wealthy background. I applied to one law school, got in, and worked my ass off because I wanted to do human rights work. Passed the bar. My friends and I had our eyes on organizations like the ACLU and Human Rights Watch because we wanted to change the system. But what we quickly realized is that the system doesn’t really let you in—not unless you come from the right background.

We started looking into the numbers. Take Harvard, for example. 43% of students admitted to Harvard College are either legacies, children of donors, or connected to university employees. The reality is, these numbers don’t just stop at undergrad. They follow you into law school, into hiring, into promotions, and ultimately into leadership at these very organizations that are supposed to be fighting for justice.

I’ve spoken with so many people who wanted to work in this space—smart, driven people who actually understand what it means to be on the other side of injustice. People who thought these organizations would be different. But time and time again, they find themselves shut out. It’s not about talent or dedication; it’s about access. And unless you come from an Ivy League (or its equivalent in another country), breaking into leadership at these institutions is almost impossible.

Sure, these organizations do important work. But how much greater could that work be if they actually opened doors for people outside their bubble? If they actively developed and promoted professionals from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds—not just in DEI positions (which, let’s be real, are few and far between)—but across the board?

I’m not writing this because I think these organizations are failing. I’m writing this because they could be doing so much more. If they truly want to uplift people, they need to start by looking at the way they hire, promote, and shape the future of human rights work. Otherwise, they’re just reinforcing the very systems they claim to be fighting against.

(Friends account/throw away)

for those of us working in fundraising/development operations and gift processing, I would love to hear about meaningful professional development opportunities you've benefited from or facilitated for employees (particularly those focusing on gift processing).

I read on here recently about the association of advancement services professionals, which was great to learn about. curious if there are other courses, opportunities, or groups for those of us on the devops side of things. (and not necessarily CRM-specific, although those are great too!)

My wife and I are in the process of starting a PF and we'd like to do 3 main things.

• Issue grants to public charities that support vulnerable youth in our community.
• Occasionally provide 'safety net' direct hardship assistance grants to families in crisis. ($2000 max per year or something along those lines to assist with an unexpected expense such as car repair, security deposit etc.
• Provide affordable housing to indigent families not eligible for other assistance

The first 2 seem straight forward, but the housing issue is the one we're looking for input on. We're specifically looking to support families not eligible for government assistance / families on waiting lists for section 8 or other public housing programs (section 8 wait is currently 5 years). We'd like to purchase a couple of properties and rent them out below market rate based on income / need. Properties would be in an LLC attached to the PF for risk mitigation / to protect the other assets in the foundation. I'm not necessarily looking for input on the landlord side / risk aspect (which is obviously quite high), but instead seeking advice on doing this from a private foundation in general. I couldn't find another PF doing similar work as it seems most solely issue grants to public charities.

• Not interested in forming a PC as this will be self funded and wouldn't pass the public support test.
• Though not common, any reason why it couldn't or shouldn't be done through a PF?
• Is this a terrible idea? If so, why? What alternative ideas do you have?

I am a board member of an all volunteer, board. We are needing to send out a vote for a new name. We would like people to choose from three options and we have 1300 members. I'm looking for recommendations for the best online tool? TIA.😊

I’ve been job searching for months, and I’m finally in the final round of interviews for three different nonprofit organizations. I’m really hoping that one of these comes through! The thing is, I am about six months pregnant. I’m not sharing this information during interviews, which are all conducted via Zoom. I’m not planning to tell them until after paperwork gets signed.

Because I work for nonprofits, I feel bad that I’m going to blindside one of these well-meaning managers with the news that I’m going on maternity leave soon. Some of these are small organizations and teams. What’s the best way for me to tell them, once I do get the job? During the first manager meeting on my first day? Or via email before that? Or some other way? I’m feeling nervous and guilty about it.

I am looking for a printing service to mail merge our letters to personalize them with names and addresses. Letterprinting.net seems like a good price. Does anyone have experience with them?

I could produce the direct mail campaign in house but the amount of work it would require is a lot.

I've been in the health nonprofit world for about 12 years, progressively building my career. When I first started, I knew I wanted to be in health NPOs, and I ended up finding a niche market in rare/rare-er diseases. In general I've loved my career, but I'm becoming a bit frustrated with my current situation.

Obviously, due to rare diseases impacting a much smaller amount of people, even with NPOs that have a well-established national reach (USA), they still have a much smaller budget and much smaller staff than NPOs that have larger patient populations.

Because of very small staff sizes, we often pick up the slack between departments (often these "departments" are literally only one or two people), even more so than what is already a very common problem in the NPO world at large!

Lately I feel as though I'm in a jack of all trades, master of none situation. I've picked up so many years of various skills in different areas (development, advocacy, communications, etc.), but I always end up in roles where they aren't specifically in one major department. (For example, I'm currently a regional senior manager and my job is a crazy blend of helping with everything in my region, from working with patients and clinics, recruiting volunteers, planning events and fundraisers, promoting/creating promotional materials for said events, donor and corporate development, political advocacy, etc.)

I am tired of feeling like I'm being pulled in 50 directions while not seeing the upward progress that I want, and recently realized that I should really pick a lane and move forward with more focus. The problem is, I'm not quite sure how to do that or where to start.

Has anyone else been in a situation like this and gotten out of it into a more focused track? If so, how?

Also, has anyone worked with a career coach who specializes in NPO careers, and did it help? Career coaches are pricy! I'm willing to pay to work with one if I am fairly confident it will be a benefit to my career, but I've heard mixed things from friends who have previously hired a career coach, so I'm wary.

What are we giving our major donors as a “thank you”? In my org, these are gifts over $20k annually. It’s varied over the years but I’m of the mindset these folks don’t want “stuff”. Curious to hear what other orgs are doing.

The CFC gives the federal community the opportunity to donate to thousands of participating charities via workplace giving each year. For the nonprofits that still participate in the Combined Federal Campaign, are your organizations discussing and planning for any anticipated impacts due to recent events? This seems like another important source of funding (for many orgs) that could be affected.

I'm a bookkeeper and have a new non-profit client (they are very small) and they're requesting financial statements on a quarterly basis, instead of a monthly basis, as the board meets quarterly. Are there any requirements for a non-profit to have monthly financial statements or is this simply a best practice? I've been trying to find a source that outlines the financial statement reporting requirements for non-profits. Thanks for your help!

For small orgs, what password manager do you use, if any?

To help people address the mod's comment:

• small org (1-3 employees)
• single device (for now)
• collaborative ability not necessary
• local hosting ideal, not necessary
• tiny budget

Well, I pulled the trigger and submitted my application to sit for the CAE- I have the MSAE study cards I keep running through and dog-eared my Nonprofit Management 101 to high heaven.

What other study materials do you recommend? Is the ASAE study guide worth it?