NonProfit Pro

The 2015 M+R Benchmark Study is out. This year, M+R surveyed 84 nonprofit organizations on its fundraising metrics through social media, email marketing and online revenue. While it is an admittedly small sample, the findings are detailed enough to warrant a look. So what’s new this year? Social media is still growing, email list size is increasing but that growth is sluggish compared to previous years, and monthly giving has increased in popularity.

Recent tweets from folks you should follow.

The Institute of Fundraising (IoF) announced the shortlist for the renowned National Fundraising Awards, now in their 23rd year, designed to celebrate success and excellence across the fundraising sector. The winners of the 14 awards will be announced at a celebratory dinner, taking place on July 6 at the Hilton London Metropole hotel. Categories have been refreshed for 2015 and include a brand-new award: Best Individual Giving Campaign. Shortlists have been announced for 11 of the awards.

When you reduce philanthropy to a transaction, you've placed yourself in the pool with everyone. Your cause becomes identical to everyone else's. Giving as a quid pro quo definitely has its limits—in any community.

Hillary Clinton's family's charities are refiling at least five annual tax returns after a Reuters review found errors in how they reported donations from governments, and said they may audit other Clinton Foundation returns in case of other errors. The charities' errors generally take the form of under-reporting or over-reporting, by millions of dollars, donations from foreign governments, or in other instances omitting to break out government donations entirely when reporting revenue, the charities confirmed to Reuters.

The New York State attorney general's office has opened an inquiry into the Boy Scouts of America's hiring practices to determine whether the group has discriminated as an employer against gays.

The office will ask Wayne Brock, the chief scout executive of the Boy Scouts' national organization, for detailed information on the group's involvement in hiring decisions there and at its local councils. The request comes three weeks after the Boy Scouts' New York City affiliate said it had hired a gay Eagle Scout to work in a scout camp this summer.

Those of us in the nonprofit arena have a responsibility—and an accountability—to build things that outlast us. It's not about us as CEO, or chief development officer, or board chair, or board member. It's about building an organization that is sustainable and can grow in support of a worthy mission.

Paisley McDonald and her fiancé, Chris Madsen, know exactly what they want in a wedding celebration. Engaged in February, they made quick work arranging the details, including a small May beach ceremony on Amelia Island in Florida and later a party for up to 300 in Atlanta, where they live.

They also know what they don't want: presents.

The couple has instructed loved ones to mark the nuptials with a donation to Compassion International, a Christian organization that works with impoverished youths.

"We mutually said, 'Let's not do gifts,' " explained the 28-year-old Ms. McDonald, an interior designer.

Before signing off of "The Daily Show" for the last time, host Jon Stewart will lend his star power to a fundraiser for New York Collaborates for Autism. People who donate at least $10 to the nonprofit using Omaze.com, a donation platform that works like a charity raffle, are entered to win two tickets to the taping of Stewart’s final program on August 6.

NonProfit PRO, the nonprofit sector's go-to source for tactical leadership and strategy, is proud to announce Sean Norris as executive editor.