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Volunteering Has Changed Over The Past Decade. Tips for Recruiting Volunteers Read time: 3-4 minutes Has volunteer recruitment felt a little harder for your organization this year? I’m hearing it across organizations. It’s not just you. Something has been shifting. This week, I’m actually in D.C. helping present a special project I’ve been consulting on for a global nonprofit, Points of Light, over the past 18 months: Designing a National Volunteer Strategy to increase volunteerism across the…

3 Things Funders are Quietly Asking Themselves as They Read Your Donation Request Read time: 3-4 minutes Feel like you’re hitting a wall with your grant funding requests? Even organizations with the most overtly compelling missions get rejection letters. It might not be about the quality of your writing. Sometimes it comes down to the answers to a few key questions funders are asking themselves as they read your request. …And once you get a handle on these questions, you can start building…

3 Mindset Shifts We Need to Make as Nonprofit Leaders if Our Orgs are Going to Thrive Read time: 3-4 minutes What if some of the biggest obstacles holding your nonprofit back aren’t external at all? Sometimes the thing standing between your organization and its next level of growth is a mindset — A belief about how nonprofits are supposed to work, what leaders are supposed to do, or how boards are supposed to function that just isn’t serving you anymore. But mindsets can shift. And when they…

3 Ways To Start Preparing (Early) For Year-End Giving Read time: 3-4 minutes It’s June. Half-way through the year (how, I ask?!). And that means year-end fundraising might be quietly starting to creep back into your mind. You know it’s coming. You know it matters. But it still feels far away – and then bam! Suddenly, it’s November, and teams are trying to figure out what to say, what to ask for, and how to pull everything together at once. The organizations that feel more confident going into…

Set Your Organization Up For Success: What Would Break If Your Leader(s) Took 30 Days Off? Read time: 3-4 minutes When was the last time you took a real vacation from your nonprofit? Not the kind where you’re still checking email between activities. I mean a true break where the organization keeps running without you. Don’t freak out. 😱 I get it. Even imagining that can feel dizzying. I’ve literally been there. I know first hand how in growing organizations, a lot of important information and…

The Fundability Test: If your Nonprofit got $1 Million today, what would you invest in? Read time: 3-4 minutes Would your nonprofit pass the “Fundability Test”? 🤔 Here’s how it works: Imagine that a magical unicorn 🦄 of a donor called you today and offered your nonprofit $1 million – but only if you could quickly explain the best way to invest that money for the organization’s future. We could all endlessly list things we could spend money on. But the more important question (and the one big…