NonProfit Pro

Tweets from the DMA Nonprofit Federation's 2015 Washington Nonprofit Conference (#DCNP2015).

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 their nonprofit trends for 2015. Here are two of those trends, one on donor acquisition and the other on agency/consultant relationships.

The nonprofit International Relief and Development — once the U.S. Agency for International Development's largest contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan — responded to USAID’s suspension of its projects over allegations that IRD misused U.S. taxpayer funds and engaged in “serious misconduct.”

“This is a pretty unprecedented situation,” an IRD representative told Devex, “and an extraordinary opportunity going forward to build a 21st century [nongovernmental organization] that is really going to be setting some new standards in the development landscape.”

Legislation unveiled by California’s top charity official would add disclosure requirements for paid commercial fundraisers and extend the statute of limitations from five years to 10 years in cases of misconduct. Attorney General Kamala Harris and Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin unveiled Assembly Bill 556. Current regulations in the Golden State allow third parties to solicit funds from donors without disclosing whether a portion of the gift would be diverted to a paid company by establishing their operations as “fundraising counsel” instead of “commercial fundraisers.”

Venture philanthropy is a growing movement that includes the idea of a nonprofit selling access to its data for profit. Nonprofits make investments that may pay dividends down the road, somewhat like what big academic institutions have been doing for years. It differs from traditional sources of funding for nonprofits, which most often depend on donations from foundations, corporations and wealthy individuals.

This form of venture philanthropy garnered attention last year when the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation sold its rights to royalties from Kalydeco for a landmark $3.3 billion.

A sad situation I observe very frequently is a major gifts manager whose primary skill set is major gifts but finds him- or herself in a management position where the up-line managers, even the CEO, are critical of his or her "lack of management ability."

The 10 tips below are basic copywriting guidelines that will help you every time you write a fundraising letter, email or blog post.

NonProfit PRO spoke with two expert nonprofit tax attorneys to provide their tips on the tax issue for nonprofit organizations. Here are the insights—from the basics to the changing landscape—shared by Cliff Perlman, partner at the law firm Perlman & Perlman, and attorney Marc J. Lane.

The discussion around Present Self/Future Self is not new nor hard to understand. But the discipline and insight to realize when we are collecting and/or relying on Present Self information is hard.

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.