Next Tuesday, September 20th, thousands of nonprofits will participate in one of the largest celebrations of democracy in our nation’s history: the tenth annual National Voter Registration Day (NVRD). Over NVRD’s ten years, more than 4.7 million people have been registered to vote through the nonpartisan outreach efforts of nonprofits and others. This year’s goal is to register another 800,000 people. In case you missed it, this article from last month’s newsletter offers simple, nonpartisan ways nonprofits can help our communities register and exercise the right to vote.
This month, we share information about requirements in Mastercard’s impending new rules for nonprofits that offer recurring donations. Next, Trinity Foreman writes about making your social media communications accessible to people with disabilities – while simultaneously improving the experience for all users. We also share easy steps for nonprofit employees and employers to take before the October 31 expiration date for the “Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness” program, which is helping nonprofit employees with student loans qualify more easily to get their loans forgiven and/or gain additional PSLF credit for payments previously made (even many people who had been told in the past that they had the wrong loan type or the wrong repayment plan).
Our good friends at the Building Movement Project conducted their first national survey on race and leadership in nonprofits back in 2016, and the second survey three years later. Today, we urge you to take the 2022 Survey, which explores some new topics – like the experiences of frontline workers and changing expectations of nonprofit workplaces – while continuing to gather important information on the intersection of race, leadership, and nonprofit culture. By participating in this latest BMP survey, you can provide important insights that can be used to evaluate how well our sector is moving towards expressed values.
New Mastercard Rules Will Affect Nonprofits that Offer Recurring Donations
Mastercard is updating its Transaction Processing Rules in a way that will affect charitable nonprofits that offer donors the option to make recurring donations. Mastercard has directly confirmed with us that it has postponed the effective date of its new requirements for nonprofits until March 21, 2023, which will give nonprofits more time to learn about the new rules and put compliance programs in place.
Nonprofits that accept recurring donations through payments made using a Mastercard need to understand the new conditions and constraints. In today’s article, we’ve posted our current understanding of the new rules. Questions remain, however, about aspects of Mastercard’s new standards, and the company has committed to work with the nonprofit community to clarify the requirements. We will keep our readers informed as things evolve.
Your Views Matter!
Help Advance Equity in the Nonprofit Sector by Sharing Your Experiences in the Race to Lead Survey
Our good friends at the Building Movement Project conducted their first national survey on race and leadership in nonprofits back in 2016.
Since then, the nation has experienced the COVID pandemic, uprisings in response to the murder of George Floyd and police violence, the continuing epidemic of mass shootings, and dramatic shifts in the political landscape. How has the nonprofit sector shifted in response?
Race To Lead is building the largest dataset on race and leadership in nonprofits to inform and improve the sector. Take the survey to help develop stronger, more equitable nonprofit organizations and better serve communities.
Unlike many surveys that seek one response per organization, Race to Lead recognizes that everyone’s experience is different – even within the same organization – so they need as many individual responses as possible.
Did we mention that you can be entered to win one of ten $250 gift cards by completing the survey?
Please take the survey, and then share it with everyone you know in the nonprofit sector. The Race to Lead survey isn’t just about numbers, it captures personal experiences – good or bad – that contribute to a collective story and have the potential to transform the nonprofit sector. Each individual nonprofit worker’s story is a meaningful qualitative data point that helps make the case for moving organizations and the sector towards a shared vision of equity and belonging.
How to Increase Accessibility in Social Media Content
Social media has the capability to democratize resources and connect a wide world of users to a nonprofit. Planning content to ensure accessibility expands the audience and inherently expresses your organization’s commitment to equity and inclusion. Accessibility is not only about opening resources to those with disabilities, but it also improves the quality of the experience for all users. Our Communications Specialist Trinity Foreman – the talent behind our lately splendid Twitter feed – shares four easy steps to improve social media accessibility and offers additional useful resources as well
Nonprofit Employees and Employers:
Time is Running Out to Take Advantage of Temporary Relief Under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
Whether you are an employee or employer, we urge you to take these simple yet important actions today:
Employees with federal student loan debt:
- Check your eligibility for the limited-time PSLF waiver at https://studentaid.gov/PSLF
- Tell as many other nonprofit workers as you can!
Nonprofit employers:
- Tell your employees - today - to check their eligibility for the limited-time PSLF waiver. We've created a sample email you can use to inform your employees.
- Be prepared to certify your employees' certification forms and have your organization's EIN handy.
- Spread the word to other nonprofit employers to tell their employees, too.
Retweet the image above, with links in the tweet nonprofit employees and employers can use.
ICYMI, read Rich Leimsider’s personal story about how his own loans were forgiven through PSLF.
Civic Engagement
"Our democracy depends on ordinary people who make sure every election runs smoothly and everyone's vote is counted.” – Power the Polls
Nonprofits are stepping up to provide nonpartisan assistance to help address the shortage of people willing to work the polls on election day. Power the Polls reports that it generated 700,000 poll workers in 2020 and is expanding efforts to help solve this recurring problem.
New Resources
- National Hispanic Heritage Month starts today, September 15. This nationwide celebration of the histories, cultures, and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America continues through October 15.
- The U.S. Census Bureau just released 2021 Income, Poverty and Health Insurance statistics from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities posted an analysis that many nonprofits will find of interest, about how government COVID-response policies helped drive down the poverty and uninsured rates in 2021 – and what we can expect now that some of those policies have ended.
- Both funders and grantees should be aware of the great ideas for breaking the nonprofit starvation cycle at the Funding for Real Change project. Here’s another idea: foundations, send your grantees an 8 percent supplemental grant this fall to help them deal with inflation. Grantees: it doesn’t hurt to ask!
- Form 990-N Login Changes: Last month, the IRS changed the login process for Form 990-N (e-Postcard), which most smaller nonprofits (those regularly having annual gross receipts of $50,000 or less) can use for their annual tax filing. Under the new process, small nonprofits filing the 990-N must sign into the IRS modernized authentication platform using either their active IRS username or create an account with ID.me, which requires an email address and multifactor authentication.
- It’s very clear – hybrid is here to stay. Approximately 56 percent of full-time employees in the U.S. – more than 70 million people – say their job can be done working remotely from home. According to a recent Gallup survey of more than 8,000 of these “remote-capable” workers, nearly 30 percent are exclusively remote now (a six-fold increase over the pre-pandemic trend). Nearly half have a hybrid office/home schedule. 60 percent of them prefer a long-term hybrid arrangement. According to Gallup, “Employees who don't work in their preferred location have significantly lower employee engagement, alongside higher burnout and desire to quit. They simply do not feel well-positioned to do their best work or live their best life.”
- Plan now – Giving Tuesday is November 29, 2022: Nonprofits frequently ask, “Should we participate in Giving Tuesday?” There’s no simple answer. It’s not necessarily right for every organization. Perhaps your small nonprofit doesn’t have the capacity to engage fruitfully. Some nonprofits feel that donors are inundated with too many competing messages that day. Your calendar might prioritize other events, such as a local giving day, or perhaps your board prefers to use the time to recognize and engage loyal donors rather than reaching for new ones (some nonprofits call it “Giving Thanks Tuesday”). Every element of your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy has both strengths and opportunity costs – if you’re doing one thing, chances are you’re giving up something else. As long as your plan is thoughtful and deliberate, and as long as you’re systematically testing and adjusting the plan, you should feel free to determine the development calendar that works best for your nonprofit. If it’s the right match, Giving Tuesday can be a terrific capacity-builder for nonprofits, among other strengths. If your plan does call for engagement in Giving Tuesday, now is a good time to start working on your Giving Tuesday timeline and materials. Find the Giving Tuesday toolkit here.
- Just one hour of lost sleep can make people less generous. Maybe don’t send your spring appeal out right after daylight savings time? 😉
Parting Note
How to Avoid Death by PowerPoint
A good reminder to keep it concise: David Phillips’ TEDxStockholmSalon talk from 2014.