This guide will walk you through:

• How to create nonprofit surveys
• What are the best tools for online surveys
• How often you should send surveys
• Common survey mistakes
• How surveys can help in donor retention
• Tips for creating surveys
• and more!

This guide will walk you through:

• Developing a Text Messaging Strategy
• Crafting Effective Messages
• Integrating Texting with Other Communication Channels
• Utilizing Texting for Fundraising and Donor Engagement
• Evaluating and Measuring Success
• and more!

As you establish a new nonprofit organization or build out the income sources for an existing nonprofit, you want to consider each type of potential revenue and decide which ones will work best for your organization.

This guide will walk you through:

• Deciding which sources to utilize as you build your organization
• The various types of funding streams and how to use them
• Information on grants, corporate giving programs, and more
• A worksheet to help you decide which funding streams to focus on

• Executives must have full confidence in financial data
• Accounting teams should deliver timely, accurate reports
• Leaders should evaluate accounting functions for quality standards

Human Resources Compliance Guide for Nonprofits

This comprehensive guide covers critical areas of human resources compliance for nonprofits, including onboarding, recruiting, and managing employee handbooks. Proper HR compliance helps minimize legal risks and maintain a healthy, respectful workplace.

First, the onboarding section provides best practices for integrating new hires through documentation, job descriptions, orientation, and training. It emphasizes setting clear expectations and supporting new employees during their transition.

Next, the recruiting section focuses on non-discrimination and legal compliance. It offers tips for inclusive job postings, responsible background checks, and avoiding bias in hiring. HR Compliance means background checks must balance safety with candidates’ privacy rights.

In addition, the employee handbook section outlines essential policies to communicate expectations around pay, leave, technology use, and more. Regular legal review and updates are vital for hr compliance as laws and organizations evolve over time.

Key takeaways are:

• Effective onboarding sets expectations and supports new hires.
• Recruiting must ensure non-discrimination and legal compliance.
• The employee handbook requires regular review and updates.

With laws frequently changing, strong human resources compliance protects nonprofits from legal issues and upholds their reputations. This guide aims to support nonprofits in fostering fair, inclusive and supportive workplaces while avoiding major compliance pitfalls. It provides actionable advice and best practices applicable to diverse nonprofits.

Mapping and Modernizing Your Data Strategy for Longterm Success: Part 2

Part two of this guide can help your organization map and modernize its data strategy.

Achieving a high-performance data strategy means your organization uses data to make informed decisions at all levels. You’ve built a culture that values data and have a strong infrastructure to support data collection, analysis, and reporting. Your team members are empowered to use data to make decisions, and you’re using data to ensure that your organization meets its overarching goals.

The Social Solutions data maturity model is designed to help organizations reach this point. By following the model’s four stages, you can ensure that your organization is using data strategy to make informed decisions and drive toward your desired outcomes. You’ll be able to secure funding, improve your operations, and provide better services to the people you serve. With data as your guide, you can achieve high performance and create lasting change in your community.

Key Takeaways are:

• Committing to data
• Counting outputs
• Measuring outcomes
• Managing outcomes

This guide is a follow-up on Part One of Mapping and Modernizing Data Strategy.

Mapping and Modernizing Your Data Strategy for Longterm Success: Part 1

You can use this guide to gain valuable insight into optimizing organizational performance and maximizing impact through data. 

According to a recent funder study, the impact is a top consideration when deciding whether to fund an organization.

This guide addresses common challenges nonprofits face, such as economic uncertainty and staffing fluctuations. These challenges can make modifying the current database or reporting systems difficult.

This guide emphasizes the importance of modernizing software to improve service delivery, expand programs, and sustain funding. It explains the risks of putting off such changes, including gaps in data that can lead to service delivery issues, difficulty in understanding organizational impact, staff burnout due to manual data entry processes, and lost funding opportunities due to an inability to meet reporting requirements.

Adopting an intelligent case management solution is recommended as the first step to addressing these challenges. This solution will enable your organization to streamline its processes, automate data collection, and reduce staff workload while improving data accuracy. 

In this guide, you will receive an understanding of the following:

• Outputs: Individual data points highlighting client interactions (e.g. meals served, session attendees).
• Outcomes: Quantitative/qualitative conclusions from outputs that measure change (e.g. 80% reduction in recidivism).
• Impact: Overall change and influence on clients/community backed by reported outcomes (e.g. successful reintegration into families).

5 Lessons and Tips for an Executive Director

“I have led both a nonprofit and a state agency during stormy times. During my tenure as executive director, one of my greatest joys was pulling everyone together as a team to create an extraordinary sense of connection. In those moments, the barriers between the board, executive leaders, front-line staffers, and behind-the-scenes workers became irrelevant—we were all in it together. The challenges that inevitably come with working at a nonprofit became opportunities to draw powerful takeaways. Crisis creates connections.”

– A message from this guide’s author, Janet Sharkis

This short, how-to guide will provide you with five ideas on improving as an executive director and using technology to your advantage. Some lessons come with time, and Janet shares her experience with us to help you gain some additional insights.

In this guide, you will get tips for an executive director and learn about the following:

• How do you encourage out-of-the-box thinking with your team
• The importance of making data-driven decisions within your organization
• Ways you can embrace each other’s strengths
• Why you should keep your community and partners engaged
• And why you should also enjoy the journey!

Download this pamphlet on tips for an executive director (created by an executive director) and get started today!

How to create a nonprofit report that funders want to see

Want to learn how to create a nonprofit report to boost donor trust? You can use this guide to identify what funders use to make decisions.

Connecting a nonprofit’s impact to its reporting provides steps for measuring program outcomes. Defining objectives and focusing on quantitative measurements is essential to improve nonprofit reporting processes. Next, data should be collected, and caseworkers should understand the larger picture. The data can then be analyzed to develop outcomes that show the nonprofit’s impact. Finally, outcomes should be shared with internal and external stakeholders to showcase the nonprofit’s work and boost fundraising and engagement.

Based on survey responses from 440 funders, the guide explains how nonprofits can improve their reporting to appeal to more funders.

Nonprofits must develop comprehensive, data-driven reports demonstrating their impact and aligning with funders’ decision-making factors to secure funding. Funders’ decision-making is primarily driven by how nonprofits develop and create reports, and the guide stresses the need to report to stakeholders. It identifies different types of reports nonprofits can create and emphasizes the importance of efficient reporting to generate more funding, especially with staffing shortages.

Here is what you will receive in this guide :

• How to create a nonprofit report
• Examples of reports that nonprofits use to tell their story
• How to connect your nonprofit’s impact to reporting
• Four steps to keep in mind when measuring your outcomes
• and more!

The Ultimate A/B Testing Guide

There is so much to be learned from split testing. Whether optimizing a small amount of copy or revising an entire donation page, these small changes can hugely impact your donations and revenue. And that’s not just the case for donation pages! You can experiment with variants in email copy, formatting, subject lines, and sending times.

This comprehensive guide on split testing for non-profits is a great place to start if you’re new to testing and need some help getting started.

Learn eight experiments on your donation page and find which works best for your organization. Experiments include:

• Communicate why donors should give using a clear copy
• Avoid using a video on your donation page
• Use communal language to help donors know they are an integral part of your cause