Data Security

Data has long been at the heart of direct marketing. In the nonprofit world, data allowed us to rent lists of people who had shown a propensity toward giving to causes similar to ours. On the cultivation side, data permitted us to choose which donors to mail based upon previous history and tailor messages to their interests. This smart use of data let us provide donors what they wanted rather than cluttering up their mailboxes with irrelevant offers. And it allowed nonprofits to raise more dollars at a lower cost to more efficiently and effectively feed hungry children, cure life-threatening cancer and support our wounded veterans.

To get a handle on what’s in store for 2015, NonProfit PRO rounded up some of the nonprofit industry’s finest, who were kind enough to share these 70 trends for this new year — everything from leadership to staffing to fundraising and more.

At a recent Wake Up Your Fundraising Breakfast Panel presented by FundRaising Success and sponsors Blackbaud and Listen Up Espanol, three fundraising professionals joined me in a discussion on maximizing your return on "big data" to enhance fundraising and relationships with donors.

Liz's worthy organization sought to be frugal for years. Not a bad thing. Gradually, but surely, this desire to be financially responsible morphed into a cost-cutting monster. That's when the need to keep faith with investors, donors — those who pay the bills — somehow got lost in the desire to maximize cash flow and reduce overhead to zero — if possible.

Social media has revolutionized the way people communicate and has become a central player in the nonprofit field. With the help of social media, nonprofits can easily organize events, raise money and find new supporters, all with just a few clicks.

Unfortunately, like anything else that carries power, social media also carries inherent risk. Just as you can easily improve your nonprofit’s reputation with a few clicks, you can just as easily damage it.

Here are a few ways you can operate safely on social media, while still using it to help your nonprofit thrive.

While volunteer and professional fundraisers must have useful information to effectively perform, organizations must protect sensitive items and keep them confidential. I’m going to provide you with eight tips that will help you keep your organization safe and your prospects and donors happy. Before a crisis happens at your organization, take the time to review your organization’s own prospect research and information sharing protocols.

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday that tax-exempt groups spending millions on election-time ads this campaign season can keep their donors secret, turning aside an attempt by a Democratic congressman to force disclosure.

The unanimous decision reversed a ruling by a lower court in March that had sent scores of tax-exempt groups scrambling for ways to protect their donors' names and continue to run ads ahead of the Nov. 6 presidential and congressional elections.

When does a 501(c)(6) trade association have to disclose its members to the public? Not often, as the schedule of contributors provided to the IRS is not a public document. California has other ideas about that. If a 501(c) organization makes independent expenditures in California state races, or is involved in a ballot measure, new rules from the California Fair Political Practices Commission will require disclosure of certain members or contributors.

The Federal Election Commission overstepped its bounds in allowing groups that fund certain election ads to keep their financiers anonymous, a federal judge ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson's ruling could pave the way to requiring groups that spend money on electioneering communications — ads that don't expressly advocate for or against a candidate running for federal office — to disclose their donors.

The FEC ruled in 2007 that corporations and nonprofits did not have to reveal the identities of those who financed such ads.

Nine government watchdog groups called on the 2012 presidential candidates to lift the veil of secrecy that shrouds their biggest fundraisers, the so-called "bundlers" who use their connections to steer millions of dollars from well-heeled donors to the campaigns of their choice.

In letters sent to President Obama and Republican candidates Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, the organizations asked that the campaigns disclose specific information about their major bundlers, identifying them by name and stating the precise amounts they raise.