Nonprofits rely on their finance teams to educate management and the board on all financial aspects related to the organization. Without a strong finance department, nonprofits risk not having the information needed to make critical decisions. Here are four compelling reasons to ensure you have a strong finance department: Fiscal accountability: accuracy and transparency of financial reporting helps instill confidence with funders and constituents alike Effective resource management: developing budgets, monitoring cash flow, and implementing appropriate financial controls to ensure the organiz ..read more

The members of your nonprofit’s Board of Directors are many things: knowledgeable and successful in their areas of focus, community leaders, passionate about your mission, and important decision-makers for your organization. What they might not be are experts in nonprofit finance and management. For the most effective meetings with productive discussions, you need to present your financial information to your board in a way that they understand, and quickly. Board members are busy, and they may not have time to review the material closely beforehand. By providing clear, organized, and eas ..read more

If you have been asking yourself, “What is a CRM?” and “Does my nonprofit really need one?” the answers are straightforward. CRM stands for “customer relationship management,” and is often called “constituent relationship management” when used in a nonprofit or educational context. And, yes, your nonprofit probably needs one.   A CRM is a system that manages and optimizes information related to current or prospective clients or donors, including contact information, interactions, personal and behavioral data, and communications. In turn, customer or constituent data in the CRM can he ..read more

Foundations and grantmaking organizations are trying to untangle some of the world’s messiest problems: homelessness, food insecurity, climate change, and the rights of people who are often overlooked, to name a few. Not only are the issues multifaceted and overlapping, but they can also change based on location. What worked in one area of the world is not guaranteed to work in another. But the people who are on the frontlines of these issues—the people who work directly with the unhoused, who live in areas affected by severe weather, or who are a member of a marginalized group—are the ones wh ..read more

Charitable giving is essential to your nonprofit, but fundraising can be one of your most daunting tasks. It requires preparation, communication, creativity, adherence to regulation, plus the enthusiasm of your supporters. Little wonder it consumes so much of your organization’s energy and budget. Fortunately, philanthropic giving is on the rise. Blackbaud Institute’s 2022 Charitable Giving Report marked a 9% increase in overall giving from the previous year. Lending Tree reports that more than half of Americans are generous, with 56% contributing to a charity in 2021. With donations and goodw ..read more

By now you’ve likely seen or heard about artificial intelligence (AI), and the predictions that it’s going to upend everything we do. Maybe you’ve even played around with ChatGPT or some other AI language tool. Maybe your organization even uses some early AI for administrative tasks, like a chatbot for questions. I tried ChatGPT and can tell you it writes wonderful haikus, crafted a pretty decent Valentine’s Day message for my sweetheart, and correctly predicted many of the matchups in my colleagues’ Holiday Movie bracket contest. On its face, this seems at best a pleasant distraction, or mayb ..read more

Trust must be earned. “Earning” denotes work. And that work can come in a variety of forms: work by your grantee to fill out long applications with questions about programs, finances, staff, sustainability, and internal controls that get read and then filed. Or it can be your research and conversations to confirm the dedication to a shared mission. While there will always be a baseline of information needed to make sure your grant funds are stewarded well, the best place to start is with trust. Creating stronger relationships with your grantees is at the heart of trust-based philanthropy, and ..read more

In 2020, women in the U.S. controlled one-third of household financial assets–more than $10 trillion. Over the next decade, women are projected to inherit an even greater share of wealth–possibly a majority of the $30 trillion in financial assets Baby Boomers will transfer to younger generations. In addition, there is increased global awareness of women’s issues such as reproductive rights in the U.S., the #MeToo movement in Asia, reproductive rights activism in Honduras, and the ongoing fight for women’s equality in Iran. Women wield greater economic power than ever before and are harnessing ..read more

As a nonprofit fundraiser, you’ve probably asked yourself whether artificial intelligence fits into your engagement strategy. What are the capabilities and limitations of AI at this stage, and is efficiency a worthwhile trade-off for the human touch so necessary to connect with donors? One such program at your disposal is ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. Available in a research preview, it has quickly gained popularity for its ease of use and conversational interface. I decided to put ChatGPT to the test using a fictitious nonprofit ..read more

Managing a mission while meeting the evolving needs of a community is a complex and dynamic process. As communities change and grow, their needs and priorities shift. Grantmaking organizations must adapt to remain relevant and effective. This could be as simple as adjusting your guidelines to compensate for changing economics or as complicated as creating new grants and programs to meet those needs. As you start to feel the priorities of your community evolving, here are four ways to evaluate and respond so your grantmaking organization stays relevant to your community’s changing needs. Unders ..read more