Donor Cultivation

The Biggest Challenge for Fundraisers: Getting That First Prospect Meeting

If you’re a fundraiser, this might sound familiar: An experienced development team at a mid-sized university foundation is doing everything [...]

June 6, 2025| 6 min Read

Budgeting

10 Steps to Creating an Effective Nonprofit Budget

June 5, 2025| 5 min Read

Internal Controls

Building Trust and Accountability: A Guide to Nonprofit Internal Controls Policy

June 4, 2025| 6 min Read

Budgeting

Future-Proof Your Organization with Effective Budget Scenarios

May 21, 2025| 4 min Read

Grantee Partnerships

4 Common Pitfalls in the Grant Review Process (and How to Avoid Them)

May 5, 2025| 5 min Read

Latest Posts

Grants Strategy

Understanding the Grant Lifecycle: Info for Nonprofits

Many nonprofits rely heavily on grants to fund their missions, but successfully securing and managing grants requires a clear understanding [...]

June 12, 2025 | 5 min Read

Online Giving

The Impact of User-Friendly Donation Forms

If online giving is part of your organization’s fundraising strategy, user-friendly donation forms are essential for maximizing donor engagement, conversion [...]

June 12, 2025 | 4 min Read

Enrollment and Retention

Private School Admissions: Breaking Down the Data

The private school admissions process is increasingly competitive, requiring smarter strategies and more innovative tools. Whether yours is a small [...]

June 11, 2025 | 6 min Read

Community Engagement

How Can I Raise More Money with My 5K?

The 2016 Blackbaud Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Study gives us interesting insights into different types of fundraising events, like how to raise more with 5Ks.

June 11, 2025 | 5 min Read

Crisis Management

How Savvy Organizations Weather Uncertain Times

Preparing for the unknown is a tenant of leadership in today’s ever-changing economic, political, and cultural landscape—and those who know [...]

June 11, 2025 | 4 min Read

Data Management

Connect the Dots: Building a Complete View of Your Supporters

Nonprofits and schools face a persistent challenge: constituent data is fragmented, inconsistent, and often duplicated across systems. As donor relationships [...]

June 9, 2025 | 4 min Read

budgeting

Budgeting

Future-Proof Your Organization with Effective Budget Scenarios

May 21, 2025 | 4 min Read

Budgeting

How to Overcome Common Challenges in Your Nonprofit Budget Approval Process

May 12, 2025 | 5 min Read

Budgeting

Change is Inevitable: Budgets and How to Manage Changing Them

March 7, 2025 | 5 min Read

Budgeting

10 Steps to Creating an Effective Nonprofit Budget

Imagine you’re preparing for a long road trip across unfamiliar terrain. You wouldn’t set out without a map, a plan [...]

June 5, 2025| 5 min Read

The Engage Podcast

Tune in to the ENGAGE Podcast to hear experts from across the community share best practices, tips, and must-know trends that will help organizations maximize their impact.
Explore Podcasts

Donor Cultivation podcast icon

Human-Centric Fundraising

January 28, 2025 |33 min Listen

Employee Volunteering podcast icon

Revitalizing Volunteer Programs at Jackson: Overcoming Barriers to Participation

January 22, 2025 |40 min Listen

Digital Marketing podcast icon

Increasing Donor Retention through Engagement

November 26, 2024 |18 min Listen

Hidden Gems

Code and charts projected onto a female executive.

Strategic Planning

3 Imperatives for the Modern Nonprofit CFO in the Digital Age

As nonprofit finance leaders, we are charged with empowering our teams with the technology, skills, and support they need to [...]

November 3, 2022 | 5 min Read

Donor Cultivation

Engaging Your Donor Community: 5 School Fundraising Tips

Fundraising is often a necessity for schools to provide students and teachers with resources that set them up for success. [...]

April 10, 2023 | 5 min Read

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What to look for when evaluating a grant proposal

Grants Strategy

10 Things to Look for When Evaluating a Grant Proposal

Making impactful grants to the right nonprofit partners starts with a thorough grant proposal evaluation. Be sure you're looking for these 9 things.

December 1, 2022 | 3 min Read

Grants Strategy

Types of Grants That Every Nonprofit Should Know

Of the many ways a nonprofit organization can get funding, grants often seem like the holy grail. Fill out a [...]

March 21, 2025 | 9 min Read

Digital Marketing

How to Properly Run a Fundraising Campaign

Launching a successful fundraising campaign for nonprofits involves a strategic approach and precise execution. It’s not just about enthusiasm. It’s [...]

April 25, 2025 | 5 min Read

Change Management

How to Make High-Tech Fundraising Feel More High Touch for Your Donors

As a nonprofit digital strategist and technology coach, I think I have the best job in the world. I get [...]

April 18, 2025 | 5 min Read
A male and female Hispanic duo engaged in work on a digital tablet, dressed in smart casual office attire, within a modern workspace.

Donor Stewardship

Build Trust by Integrating Your Fundraising and Finance Systems

Integration is a hot term these days. As we see more of our processes move from paper files and folders [...]

March 10, 2025 | 5 min Read
View All Fundraising Posts

Financial Reporting

GAAP for Nonprofits: How to Reconcile GAAP and Non-GAAP Results

Have you ever had your board members scratch their collective heads when the development and finance teams report their results? Do you get questions on why the two never match up?

September 13, 2024 | 3 min Read

Financial Reporting

9 Best Practices for Strong Nonprofit Financial Management

Smart money moves are vital for nonprofits. You’ve got to use funds wisely, aligning with your mission and honoring donor [...]

August 12, 2024 | 11 min Read

Fund Accounting

Nonprofit Accountant vs. Fractional CFO: The Key Differences

Effective nonprofit financial management is a team effort. Having multiple people working on your organization’s finances helps ensure accuracy—not only [...]

July 24, 2024 | 4 min Read
View all Finance & Accounting Posts

Annual Giving

Rethinking Annual Giving Metrics: A New Storyline for Higher Ed

For many years, the overarching narrative for annual giving in higher education fundraising has been the same: We’re getting bigger [...]

October 4, 2024 | 5 min Read

Enrollment and Retention

Reimagining Graduate Student Recruitment: 4 Tips to Get Started

Students pursue advanced degrees with the promise of invaluable research opportunities, specialized skills, and increased earning potential. Accordingly, many college [...]

February 6, 2024 | 3 min Read

Awards and Scholarships

5 Ways to Empower Scholarship Reviewers

Reviewing scholarship applications can be one of the most complicated processes to manage during scholarship season. Reviewers are a critical [...]

December 28, 2023 | 3 min Read
View all Higher Education Posts

Change Management

What It Means to be a Connected K–12 School

The definition of “a connected school” could be many different things. Each description, at its core, stems from the answer [...]

October 29, 2024 | 7 min Read

Data Management

Information: The Better Half of IT

We sometimes forget that IT stands for Information Technology. As a society, we have become obsessed with the “Technology” half—the [...]

April 17, 2024 | 5 min Read

Tuition and Financial Aid

How to Improve On-Time Tuition Payments

Private and independent schools rely on tuition to fund operations. In its 2023–2024 Trendbook, the National Association of Independent Schools [...]

October 20, 2023 | 5 min Read
View All K-12 School Posts

Employee Wellness

Challenges of Establishing an Employee Relief Fund (ERF) and Recommended Solutions

The growth in Employee Relief Funds (ERFs) exploded in the spring of 2020 as Covid-19 began to affect companies and [...]

September 8, 2021 | 4 min Read
Women hugging in support.

Change Management

Responsive Philanthropy: How to Address Community Needs in Time of Crisis

Operations at Headwaters Foundation for Justice, a foundation that invests in grassroots organizations across Minnesota, were humming along well. The [...]

January 13, 2023 | 6 min Read
skills-based volunteering

Volunteer Management

How the Pandemic Has Changed Pro Bono

The pandemic pushed the social sector to make game-changing shifts in community programming, funding models and organizational leadership. Nonprofits that pivoted their programming in [...]

October 18, 2021 | 3 min Read
View All ESG & CSR Posts

Change Management

Questions to Ask If You Are Thinking About Moving to a New GMS

When your grantmaking organization first started, you didn’t need a lot of functionality to manage your single program and a [...]

November 7, 2024 | 4 min Read

Disaster Response

Preparing for the Inevitable: How Grantmakers Can Thrive Amid Climate Events

A huge thank you to Audrey Kidwell, Grants Manager for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, for providing many of the [...]

October 28, 2024 | 4 min Read

Budgeting

Finance Best Practices for Your Grantmaking Organization

As a grantmaker, you expect organizations you support to manage their awards effectively, accurately, and responsibly. Those same expectations should [...]

July 16, 2024 | 4 min Read
View All Grantmaking Posts

Donor Stewardship podcast icon

The Art of Managing, Rather than Mitigating, Risk

In this excerpt of a conversation with Satonya Fair, President and CEO of PEAK Grantmaking, she encourages grantmaking organizations to [...]

December 20, 2022 |25 min Listen
People volunteering

Volunteer Management

Volunteer Smarter, Not Harder: Tips from Your Fellow Social Good Pros

Are you looking for ways to manage your volunteers more effectively? To conclude National Volunteer Month, we’ve gathered the best [...]

April 28, 2022 | < 1 min Read
a team smiling at a desk together

Employee Engagement

4 Critical Elements of Managing Development Officers

There are many factors in fundraising, from early engagement to a donor’s ultimate or legacy gift. Some of these factors [...]

September 7, 2024 | 4 min Read
View All Leadership Posts