GuideStar

For at least a decade, movers and shakers in philanthropy have been trying to persuade donors to behave more like data-driven investors. But the so-called effective-philanthropy movement suffered a significant setback last month when the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a prominent champion of the idea, announced that it was ending an eight-year, $12 million effort to get donors to rely as much on their heads as their hearts.

A strong stock market helped boost the assets last year of big foundations to their highest levels since the Great Recession gutted endowments six years ago, according to a new Chronicle of Philanthropy survey. Yet grant makers still aren’t as well off as they were before the downturn, and that continues to put a damper on their giving. What it’s not doing, though: crimping ambitious new grant-making efforts to deal with vexing problems.

Join VolunteerMatch, GuideStar and Technology Affinity Group on April 8, 2014, for a free Nonprofit Insights webinar in honor of National Volunteer Week.  Learn how data and record-keeping in the nonprofit sector is becoming so much more than just the IRS Form 990—and why paying attention to this trend, and engaging volunteers to help you contribute, will help your organization get more funding and support.

When you consider the ubiquitous raffles, benefit events, cookie and candy sales, most of us have far more fundraising experience than we realize. Many people have sales backgrounds and ask for money every day. Others have prepared grant proposals or solicited corporate gifts. The purpose of this activity is to assess the fundraising skill level of your team and to reinforce the idea that your colleagues know more than they think. It's also a fun, physical activity that gets people moving.

GuideStar and Venable, LLP are presenting a free webinar to help demystify nonprofit tax laws. Our speaker, Jeffrey S. Tenenbaum chairs the nonprofit practice of one of the nation's leading law firms.. Come armed with your questions and join us for a webinar you cannot afford to miss!

It doesn’t matter how many foundations, individual donors, local and regional governments, and other funders believe in your organization and can donate financial support to it if those donors can’t find you and put you on their radar. Researching grants and prospects is the first step in the process, and navigating the upper levels of major-gift fundraising often requires a different approach than individual gift campaigns.

Will we ever be rid of the idea that nonprofits can somehow achieve a nirvana where very little (or no) money goes to boring things like salaries, technology, infrastructure, fundraising, leadership development, planning, R&D? I wonder if we could gain more traction by talking less about the negatives of an overhead myth and talking more about the positives of nonprofit organization building.

I gave a workshop on newsletters. People from Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul, Minn., attended. Their donor newsletter, mailed quarterly to 20,000 people at that point, racked up an annual net loss of $40,000. Was there a better way, they wondered?

Something amazing happened post-workshop: Giving to Gillette's newsletter increased 1,000 percent (not a misprint), after a few changes.

The old way, the foundation received about $5,000 in gifts per issue.

The new way, the foundation received about $50,000 in gifts per issue.

The great debate on overhead costs and charity watchdog ratings continues to evolve, and the Direct Marketing Association of Washington is tackling this issue with a panel discussion.

Kay Sprinkel Grace, author of "The Ultimate Board Member's Book," recently spoke with her publisher about nonprofit boards. GuideStar has published an excerpt from the book and is pleased to be able to share Grace's additional thoughts with you.