National Council of Nonprofit Associations

How the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits brought nonprofits together to better understand the challenges and develop possible solutions.

from The Detroit News | April 25, 2009

Metro Detroit's arts institutions are huddling together to help each other out.

As donations have plummeted, several are turning to a creative money-saving solution: sharing. Through an online program, they're swapping what they can give with what they can use -- buses, museum tours, performance or office space -- even high-priced intangibles, such as marketing expertise. More

from Wall Street Journal | April 22, 2009

When your mission is serving the needy, tough times can be doubly difficult: More people need help, but you have fewer resources.

Nonprofit organizations -- facing cuts in government aid, investment losses and a decline in donations -- have been experimenting with new ways to stay afloat. Besides cutting costs and eliminating waste, they're thinking more creatively about how to use volunteers, garner new donations, strengthen ties with existing donors and create projects that generate additional income. More

from Fort Worth Business Press | April 20, 2009

... The four nonprofits – a total of eight North Texas agencies were selected to participate – are part of the $1.5 million North Texas Community Wealth Collaborative, a partnership between Washington, D.C.-based social enterprise consulting firm Community Wealth Ventures Inc. and the Center for Nonprofit Management. The idea behind CWV, which was founded in 1997, is that organizations can increase their social impact by building on internal assets while reducing their dependency on fund raising.

Now in its second year of a three-year initiative, the partnership is funded by The Meadows Foundation, the Amon G. Carter Foundation, the Harold Simmons Foundation, the Citi Foundation and several anonymous sources. The collaborative involves an intensive, 11-month business planning process that teaches nonprofit agencies successful techniques to grow and develop high-performing earned income ventures. Organizations become self-sustaining after learning how to take a market-based approach to generating income through social services. More

This publication, from Environmental Support Center and The Institute for Conservation Leadership, provides best practices and tools for managers of environmental and conservation nonprofits in our challenging economic times. Learn how to track your finances, recognize danger signals, assess your options, and, make tough decisions fairly with the best interests of the organization in mind.

Learn more and download the full toolkit.

from Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog | February 2, 2009

It’s ugly out there, and if you’re the pilot of your fundraising endeavors, you’re getting pretty sick of the turbulence.  Many of us are rendered nauseous by the sight of the goals on our development dashboards.  Some nonprofits are in a fiscal nosedive.  And as any financial pundit worth his market metaphors will tell you, falling is no fun, especially without a golden parachute.

In situations like this, some people panic.  Others get inventive.  Let’s all pledge here and now to stay in the latter category.  As a wise man once said, worrying is not thinking and complaining is not action.

Here are five keys to pulling yourself and your message together to survive 2009.  They are all variations on an important theme: give donors what they want during tough times. More

from The Bridgespan Group | January 26, 2009

Tough times require trade-offs. Making trade-offs well requires clarity-about the results an organization intends to deliver and about the resources it will need to succeed.

Over the past nine years, we have worked with more than 200 nonprofit organizations seeking to achieve better results, at times in the face of serious financial setbacks. While the paths those organizations have taken are as varied as they are, we have seen one constant: their leadership's willingness to confront and make trade-offs as they answer four basic, strategic questions: What results will we hold ourselves accountable for? How will we achieve them? What do results really cost, and how can we pay  for them? How do we build the organization we will need to deliver results? More

from New York Times | January 24, 2009

Times are certainly tough on Wall Street, and the automakers are suffering as well. But consider the hardships that nonprofit organizations are enduring.

Public funding and charitable donations have plummeted even as demand for nonprofits’ services — especially for things like food and housing assistance — has risen sharply. More

from Affinity4

Given today’s economic climate and declines in nonprofit contributions, it’s important that nonprofits leverage every fundraising strategy available. Many nonprofits have had some experience with affinity marketing, sometimes known as cause marketing, through which vendors of various products/services agree to give back a percentage of sales made to the organization and its supporters. However, not all nonprofits know what it takes to make an affinity marketing program succeed. High on the list is strong communications.

Effective communications are designed to raise awareness of affinity marketing with supporters, and convey its value in helping the organization achieve its mission. To meet these goals, these communications rely on: a proactive nonprofit, the application of all media from traditional print and direct mail to online, and ongoing exposure of the goals achieved through the affinity marketing program. More

from Blue Avocado | January 2, 2009

Unhappy New Year! . . . as the nonprofit chorus seems to be singing. As if we don't need more troubles on top of the ultra-negative projections about the economy, the advice about what nonprofits should do is depressingly empty. Whenever we see something like "Fundraising in Challenging Times," we feel compelled to read it: What if the magic answer's here?! But after reading these articles and hearing these speeches, we feel, well, unsatisfied.

Scanning dozens of "what to do" lists recently, their lack of nutrition seems to fall into three groups. A lot of the advice is too abstract and even pious: "Focus on the mission" or "Be strategic." I'm reminded of a nonprofit exec from the for-profit sector who reflected that she had given out such advice as a board member and then, when receiving it as an executive director, couldn't believe how obnoxious it was. Other suggestions such as, "Monitor expenses closely," and "Delay the start of capital projects" are good advice but kind of "duh." And then there's the good advice (like "Diversify your revenue streams") that's good advice the same way "lose weight" and "achieve inner peace" are good advice: the reason we aren't doing it isn't because it hadn't occurred to us. More

from Washington Times | December 10, 2008

As the housing market crashed, credit markets froze and stock prices fell, the District-based charity SOS Children's Villages watched its donations dwindle.

"We haven't come to a screeching halt, but we are in a slowdown," said Heather Paul, president of the charity, which runs villages for orphaned and abandoned children in the United States and 169 other countries. More

from Don Griesmann's Nonprofit Blog | December 5, 2008

You can support these six steps at One.org that works on a daunting array of social and environmental problems ranging from health care and education to global warming and economic inequality. The six-point plan asks President-elect Obama and Congress to save small and medium nonprofits and help their low-income clients. Four of the six steps are already Federal law. One requires a few words added to an existing law. Those five points are aimed at providing housing, developing jobs, putting food on the table and putting money in people’ pockets. The other one calls for a bailout plan for the nonprofits themselves. This can be done in 30 days. More

from Association of Fundraising Professionals

A tumultuous economy can present unique challenges for nonprofit fundraising. Looking for ways to cope? AFP has compiled a toolkit of resources to advise and guide fundraisers in tough economic times.

“Donors have a lot on their minds these days as they sit down with their personal budgets,” explains Paulette Maehara, CFRE, CAE, president and CEO of AFP. “But despite the headlines about Wall Street and the financial markets, we as fundraisers should not lose sight of the fact that giving is a way for communities to pull together. While the economic forecasts are uncertain right now, what is quite certain is the capacity of people to lend a hand and support institutions of all kinds. We hope you’ll use AFP as a resource in garnering vital support for your organization in what may be a wild ride over the next few months.” More

from Chronicle of Philanthropy

The financial crisis embroiling the United States has many charities worried about how to manage their finances, raise money, and keep up with growing demand for services.

To help readers navigate the challenges, The Chronicle has compiled recent stories, live discussions, and statistics about how charities deal with turbulent times. More

from Philantopic | October 15, 2008

from Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP)

Nearly 100 leading fundraisers from around the world have provided new strategies and tactics for charities to survive and prosper in the current global financial crisis. Just some of the ideas and strategies offered by these experts to deal with the global financial crisis include: focus on the long term, develop messages around why we need our donors now more than ever, strengthen current partnerships to weather the storm, and focus on your major areas and drop marginal ones. More

Fieldstone Alliance has gathered a number of its resources to provide guidance to nonprofits in these challenging times. While they don't claim to have a crystal ball to foresee the future, they are in the business of helping others figure out how to move forward. To that end, visit their Opportunities in Lean Times for additional strategies and resources.

from Nonprofit Risk Management Center

The unexpected happens. Even with insightful planning and sound risk management—people are injured, fires destroy, and investments evaporate. When “stuff happens,” savvy nonprofits know that action is needed and that action has to be communicated to stakeholders. Speaking recently about the challenges posed by the economy, Rebecca Rimel, President of the Pew Charitable Trusts, stressed that clear and continual communication among the nonprofit’s staff, board and constituents is critical. How should difficult messages be crafted? Given the challenges that so many nonprofits are facing right now, we thought it was a good time to revisit some basic tenets about communicating with stakeholders in a time of crisis. More

from Nonprofit Risk Management Center

Risk management deals with both major classes of surprises: surprising threats of accidental, economic, or regulatory losses; and surprising opportunities for gain from events outside the nonprofit or from within it. Risk management is both a way of thinking and a way of acting. It allows management to both anticipate and respond to surprises so that a nonprofit can preserve from surprising threats all that it has already achieved and also capitalize on surprising opportunities to reach its full future potential. Every nonprofit's future is to some degree uncertain, unpredictable and subject to potential good and bad surprises. More

This article originally appeared in the October 30, 2008, issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

"Now is not the time for nonprofit organizations to spend precious dollars on anything that doesn't produce an immediate benefit. Or is it?"

Read more.