NonProfit Pro

FundRaising Success, the country's premier brand for fundraising strategy content, is proud to announce an official rebrand to NonProfit PRO. The brand change is consistent with the way in which nonprofits are embracing fundraising as a function of the entire organization, not just the development department.

Testimonials allow your reader to see your organization through the eyes of someone you've helped. It's a first-person, ground-level view of how you change lives.

Check out the people on the move in the nonprofit sector for January and February 2015.

By definition a campaign is a short-term event. There is a specific project and a time-limited, specific goal. And that's where, in most cases, the problem starts. I say "most cases" because I have met some fundraisers who have this right.

(Press release, Jan. 28, 2015) — Atlas of Giving shared the 2014 final report on charitable giving in the United States and released the initial 2015 giving forecast. As noted in the final report, Americans gave a record $456.7 billion to charity in 2014. According to the year-end report, total donations grew by 9.3 percent over 2014, fueled by favorable economic factors that drive giving, an increase in the number of nonprofit organizations, the impact of donor-advised funds, as well as advances in fundraising technology and techniques.

Some charities that have received money from U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein said they are reviewing their relationships with him or will decline to accept any future gifts from him in the wake of recent allegations he forced an underage girl to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew and other powerful men.

Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring an underage girl for prostitution, has burnished his reputation as a philanthropist through a series of foundations that he says have given millions of dollars to charity.

For nearly a half-century, Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy has taken an unusual approach to studying the charitable giving of the very rich, examining not just how much they give but why they do it and asking whether great wealth comes with an ethical obligation to be financially generous.

Now, as Boston is enjoying one of the most affluent periods in its history, the center is preparing to close.

A major nonprofit serving the New York’s most vulnerable population said Friday it was closing down after reporting an unexpected $19.4 million loss last year. Now city and state officials are scrambling to find organizations to take over contracts held by Federation Employment and Guidance Service Inc., one of the country’s largest social-service agencies.

To avoid the common pitfalls that often come with a leadership change and make the transition as painless as possible, nonprofits should carefully consider the following.

As leaders, we often need to spend a lot of time dealing with abstract issues, such as policies, strategies, financials, goals or customer data. If we aren't careful, we can begin to think that it is in these areas where leadership lies. But an organization is made up of people. These individuals determine its success or failure, and as their leaders, we have to think first about the people we lead.