Raising money for a nonprofit or charity is tough work. With the focus of the organization on fundraising, it is not surprising that outreach tends to focus on the numbers (the thousands who benefit from the nonprofit’s work, the millions required to keep such work going, the hundreds of people asked to give…). In this […]
#NONPROFIT: The 501(c)4 Conundrum & The IRS’s Challenges To Tea Party Groups
The scuttlebutt over the IRS’s double-standards concerning political nonprofits associated with the Tea Party and those associated with other center-right causes is likely well known to our readers. What underlies the conflict has less to do with politics, though, and much more to do with semantics. If the case forces the issue of tax reform […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: Facebook Quietly Rolls Out ‘Gifts’ & Nonprofits Can Get Them Too
Over this past spring Facebook has been expanding its Gifts service as a way to offer presents to family and friends. The service can be activated by clicking on the bowed gift box that appears on your organization’s News Feed or on the page of the person or nonprofit you want to give the gift […]
#FUNDRAISING: Outreach Tactics & Technologies Need To Adjust To Demographics
With the texts and tweets and the touchscreens and with those crazy(-cool) Google goggles and whatnot, a nonprofit would be daft to send those old-fashioned appeals by mail. The cost of printing and stamps, the hassle of upkeep of a database of address, the imposition of making potential donors find their checkbooks buried ever-farther into […]
#ADVOCACY: Google Does Harm To Privacy & Suffers An Hour’s Income For Infractions
What you think about Google’s (and Facebook’s. And Twitter’s…) efforts to collect personal information of its users probably says quite a bit about what you think about human nature: If you don’t mind a database of your online activities being used by social networks and search engines, then you are likely comfortable with the fact […]
#FUNDRAISING: Crowdfunding Response To Boston Bombing Raises Hope & Caution
One of the wonderful qualities of Americans is the way we respond with our time and our money when a terrible shock or natural disaster hits our fellow countrypeople. The bombings in Boston on the 15th were certainly ‘terrible shocks’ and as homemade and smartphone videos make clear, volunteers and fellow marathon watchers ran in […]
#PHILANTHROPY: Zuckerberg’s Millions Suggest New Style Of Giving By Young
Mark Zuckerberg always makes headlines, and few were as stunning as the ones he made in the fall of 2010 when he donated $100 million to the Newark, NJ school system − a system with which he has no personal connections whatsoever. His generosity was intended to help right the ship of one of the statistically […]
#OPINION: Ken Stern’s Book Offers Tough Love To Nonprofit Economy
Ken Stern has served as CEO of National Public Radio, arguably one of the best-known nonprofits in the country. He supports The American Red Cross, and has served on the boards of a number of charities. So when his book, And Charity for All argues that the nonprofit sector is a huge part of the […]
