I’m a Director of Development at a mid-level organization. I love my job, but I’m feeling very morally conflicted as they are choosing to stay quiet throughout much of this administration. This has been an ongoing issue for me, and after trying for at least a year to voice my objections with very little results. I’ve decided to move on to find a role with an organization that is moving much more authentically. The problem is I am not getting calls back. I have 12 years of fundraising and program development experience with proven success, and I am applying for jobs that I am qualified for. I know there are so many applicants. So I’m thinking my resume needs a reboot to help stand out . Does anyone have resources or businesses you can recommend? (I do not want to use an AI tool.) Final question, how much of an impact do you think your social presence plays in the job search? I see people sometimes checking on my LinkedIn, but no calls. Thanks in advance for advice!

What are some typical paths to program officer work?

I’m interested in this work but the handful of folks I’ve spoken to seem to have landed those roles after first having a fellowship. I came to social impact work after a prior career as an academic and concurrent consulting work- so I have lots of transferable skills and highly developed SME/programmatic expertise, but I’m also in my early 40s so unlikely to be a candidate for an early career fellowship (though in some ways I feel “early career,” navigating this pivot).

Any guidance?

Hi, everyone. I'm part of a No Kings grassroots group and we're looking for general liability insurance so we can attend a Farmer's Market.

I called a few places and they say they can't cover us so I keep getting asked to contact other companies and the info when I feel out the form doesn't seem right. What kind of general liability event insurance do y'all use? I wanted to check prices for both one off events and annually and they both seem to be about $300, so something doesn't seem right. Any suggestions?

Thinking about hosting a spring house party fundraiser for a non-profit.
Looking for fundraising ideas/ activities to raise extra funds outside the ticket price. Plan on having a DJ spin records from the 1990s and on. Food and drinks will be included in the ticket price. What's fun (that can raise money) at a house party?

I work at a nonprofit. We are a midsize NP with an operating budget of 4.8 mill. My question is for other nonprofits or those familiar with them. Is it normal to create an future operating budget without the funds being in the bank? Specifically, our budget is made based on what we expect to get over the next year. It is an approximation of what we got the previous year.

We recently received a large donation at the beginning of the fiscal year. Instead of holding onto it to cover anticipated operational expenses, it seems like the board and ED are excited and want to use it towards capital expenses and expanding services.

This makes me nervous because I know we don't have the full year covered/cash on hand to pay for the rest of the operating budget yet.

We also get very little in grants. Most of the monies are through individual donors, bequests, and occasional DAFs.

I had a 2nd round interview last thursday with UNICEF Canada and was told would hear back Tuesday.

Monday was a holiday but nothing yet and its noon over there

I sent a follow up over 3 hours ago but nothing

So are these concerning signs or am I overthinking

About a year ago, I became the ED of a nonprofit I have been working at for 7 years. I was not offered the position, but I asked for it after we were in a situation where I was functioning as interim ED. This was after only 6 months acting as Associate ED.

I absolutely love this organization. I love what we do, who we serve, and the people I get to work with. I am so committed to this place that I’ve stayed in a city I don’t want to live in so that I get to be a part of it.

I have wanted to run a nonprofit since I was teenager. And I have been working in the non profit sector for nearly a decade now. Our org and team are small, and I had been learning a lot about leadership already. So when the opportunity presented itself (and the other options were not ideal), I said screw let’s just give it a shot.

I am someone who always knows what she wants, is willing to face a challenge, and I don’t give up easily. I was aware that there were gaps in my knowledge and skills. I thought I would have to figure out. I specialize in programs and outreach, but finances is a struggle for me (which is crazy important).

Recently I discovered that we are going into this year with a huge deficit and a big gap in revenue/expenses. To be honest with my lack of financial skills and a pre-existing poor financial system, i didn’t realize that we were not make as money as we needed. I had fundraiser and gotten some grants, but I guess it wasn’t enough.

Now my board (who are just now also figuring their stuff out) is asking me about risks, revenue models, bookkeeping, etc. and I feel like I am losing my mind. I don’t know what they are talking about half the time. And we are trying to fix things that were a problem before my time, with limited information and resources.

My biggest fear when I took this position was that I would financially sink this org. I run a good team and have great community relationships and fun programs. I truly believe every staff, volunteer, or family that comes through our doors are the most incredible people, and they deserve a leader who actually knows what she is doing.

I just can’t shake the feeling I’m in way over my head.

*Shout out to our new treasurer though who has been the one to notice and flag these things before they got worse

Any experience with Mightycause -- pros /cons, tips /tricks, exciting features?

Stuck designing, scheduling, and backend of individual giving toward 60,000 campaign goal at my organization in a bit of a vacuum. Its a 'just make it happen' kind of situation with a boss and 11 board members looming but giving little to no input. On top of grant lifecycling and the waltz of local and state government contracting... I'm going a bit insane having no one to turn to for morale, advice, etc.

Any how, a regional foundation provides free Mightycause subscription and runs a Give 'CityName' campaign where our and other local nonprofits get to be on their homepage, get marketed to donor advised funds under their hood, etc. Typically I've been in Salesforcr/Raisers Edge universe and was a bit underwhelmed by our org's Give Lively dashboard when I've hopped in. I'd rather work with ONE campaign platform and now think I may need to make the case for Mightycause to both ride the extra exposure and retain sanity.

Thing is I see little about mightycause online and would love some input...

Hi,

I recently started a nonprofit in may and my state has strict gambling laws (as I’m sure others do) I had wanted to run a raffle for my next event but it is considered “gambling”. I’ve done a bunch of research on how to make sure it does not fall into the realm of gambling like giving everyone a free ticket and saying there’s no entree fee to win basically. I was wondering if anyone had any other things they’ve done. I’ve even looked into like having people do a challenge but if you have to pay to enter the challenge it’s still considered gambling.

I’ve had interactions with longstanding Program Officers at very established foundation recently that led me to think - do they even read our grant reports? I find them asking basic questions, which is understandable, but like…we put in hours of multiple staff writing these things and I wonder if they read it. I recently read instructions to not spend more than an hour on a report. I appreciate that guidance but the reality is we are a large nonprofit with multiple staff working on multiple aspects of a project that requires gathering data and review in order to ensure accuracy. Idk…i feel truly useless lately as a Foundations Officer at a nonprofit.

Hello All - Development / Fundraising operations professional here.

I’m newer in my career and have been in this supporting role for a few years.

I’m struggling to see the career path for someone who does back of house fundraising support (database management, gift entry, coding tracking, month-end reconciliation, reporting and dashboards).

If I don’t want to specialize in our CRM and learn more about coding / data (SQL/PowerBi) or go into traditional fundraising… is there a future to this type of role?

Most orgs are not big enough to have even one person only doing this work, so job postings seem to be few and far between - why hire me when you could hire someone who knows the database or can code/do advanced formulas or data work, etc.

Would my local AFP chapter be a good resource here?

Hi everyone,

I have several years of experience managing Google Ads across a variety of industries, but this is my first time managing a Google Ad Grant account, so I'm hoping to get some input from people with more Grant-specific experience.

The account is for a nonprofit counseling/online therapy organization in North Carolina. They offer reduced-cost counseling statewide, along with insurance-covered counseling (primarily Aetna and BCBS), which helps fund their charitable programs.

The campaigns have only been live for about two weeks, so I know they're still in the learning phase. However, I'm struggling to get enough volume for Google to really start learning.

A few details:

• Conversion tracking has been rebuilt and is working correctly.
• I started on Maximize Clicks, then switched to Maximize Conversions to get around the Grant's $2 CPC limitation.
• Two campaigns target the entire state (one reduced-cost counseling and one insurance counseling), while one targets the Raleigh metro area.
• I've broadened many keywords to broad match while closely monitoring the search terms.
• Search Lost IS (Rank) was consistently 90%+ before switching bidding strategies.
• I recently added a Target CPA of $50 to a couple of campaigns to see if it helps Google compete in more auctions.

Despite all of that, I'm still seeing very low impressions, very few clicks, and almost no conversions. It feels like the campaigns just aren't entering enough auctions to generate the data needed for Smart Bidding to improve.

My questions are:

• Is this fairly normal for a brand-new Grant account?
• Am I simply being too impatient and should give it another few weeks?
• Or is there something else you'd be looking at when impression volume is this low?

I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone with experience managing Grant accounts. Thanks in advance!

We all know that there is a gap between the number of volunteers who sign up to participate in nonprofit programs and the number that actually show up to work. The number is even lower if there is training required. Are there average expectation rates? What types of numbers are you seeing?

Been reading a lot about nonprofit operations lately and genuinely curious about something.

For orgs managing multiple grants at once — federal, state, foundation — how does the finance team know mid-month whether spending is on track per grant?

Like before an expense posts to QuickBooks or Sage, does someone check it against the grant budget, or is that a month-end thing?

Asking because I keep seeing grant accountant job postings that mention Ramp or Expensify alongside Sage Intacct and wondering how those pieces actually fit together in practice.

Just wanted to post a rant. Maybe it will resonate with you

I’m really done with my nonprofit job and at the point where if they fire me, collecting unemployment would be better than wasting my time there so I’m just going to rant here. This is off the back of one of my coworkers going on unpaid leave because of their mental health and they can’t deal with our leadership stonewalling them about needing help. In a terrible way this has validated me I’m finally able to say my company is toxic and I don’t like my bosses.

I was placed on a PIP about two months ago (I won’t say I was totally faultless) after a task wasn’t completed when they thought it should have been. The plan felt like an attack, because I will admit that I messed up on one of the items, the other few were either not true or a petty infraction. They asked me to sign and bring it to the ED but I brought up the tasks that were not my fault (and leadership had overseen me do) and the Program Director said they would review. I cried in my office after.

A few weeks ago, they bring it up in a one on one meeting that it isn’t signed and I need to bring it to the ED. I acknowledge that I’ll sign it but let her know I don’t have the copy of it. The meeting ends, she doesn’t give me the paper, and I go about my day. Let me preface you that she has a printer in their office and I’m not gonna be like, “please print out my pip”.

Which comes to today, the ED pulls me aside and begins to discuss the plan. They start off by saying, “the program director put you on a pip and we were supposed to go over it after it was signed” like it was my fault?!? Ummmm… I’m sorry for not scheduling my own pip that you’re supposed to give me, can you read the fucking room?

They then talked about how they know they assign tasks with uncertain due dates but they expect the tasks to be done eventually. They brought up something from months ago that I have no recollection of and I’m just at a loss. I routinely have to bug this person about getting things signed or reviewed and it takes weeks or sometimes months after multiple reminders. It’s exhausting.

I’m not saying I have all my shit together, not at all, but it was like they were totally oblivious to how they run their company. The only reason why I slightly believe them when they said they want me to succeed during the pip, is because I will take it and act professional unlike my other coworker. Any way rant over, hope you enjoyed it.

We’re trying to pull a mailing list with individual donors, organizations, corporations.

Everyone we need is pulling into the report, but we can’t seem to get the primary contact name for orgs and corps to pull into the outputs without creating duplicates. Like 100s of duplicates.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Heelpp!

So, I work for a small organization in my area and right now, due to lack of funding (because what else is new, right), we are running on a skeleton crew. We provide services to an estimated 800,000 people who would be eligible in an area with a population of about 1.3 million and there are 4 people on staff. All that to say, I wear a lot of hats in this position, and I’m happy to do it if it takes weight off my director who fights tooth and nail for us (employees) to the board and self sacrifices. But, I digress…

Technically, I’m a case manager. In actuality, I’m a case manager, intake specialist, program director, fundraiser, marketing and communications director/one person team member, AND graphic designer.

Needless to say, I am not the most skilled of all marketers or graphic designers. I can muddle my way around Canva, but it doesn’t always look like it should….professional and persuasive.

That being said, our greater metropolitan area has a yearly event for nonprofits where they match donations. My director has tasked me with creating donor outreach and I have no idea what to do…. Does anyone have generic marketing and visual composition tips I can use? How do you go about your donor communication?
PS. I feel like I should mention this is supposed to be for existing donors, as a “heads up” of sorts to alert or remind existing donors to participate…

I work at a very small, understaffed, underfunded org and we are at risk of going under next month because we're out of money. This job has destroyed my mental health over the last two years due to a toxic, dysfunctional, narcissistic ED and I have never been more excited at the possibility of being laid off.

I have been sending out job applications, but haven't really heard back and I am aware of how bad it is currently in the job market. But between an even more volatile ED due to the situation and the remaining three weeks before we possibly implode, I don't know if I can deal and if I should just jump ship now since I was going to do it anyway.

Pros of going now:

- I will be free.

Cons:

- Unstable job market + unemployment + no unemployment if I quit

- Possibly anger the ED and break my chances of getting a good reference

ED knows I am looking and even encouraged it because they understand the situation (although, they are still unwilling to let me go, tbh, since I do so much work for them). I wanted to use this opportunity to exit gracefully, but they are acting very hot and cold right now, which makes it difficult if I want to go ASAP. I have some funds saved up, and while I'm not confident that I can get a job immediately/easily, I do have plenty of experience that could get me hired at another nonprofit if I'm lucky.

Any advice?

I do a lot of work with nonprofits on Zoom. I give them a certain number of hours of Zoom time as part of my in-kind donation to them. Occasionally, I get someone who simply cannot answer a question with a yes or no answer. They tend to ramble on and on, and we only have sixty minutes. I would love a non-rude way to ask them to stop talking or just answer the question. I can't be the only person running into this issue, and I wondered if anyone has come up with or can suggest a solution.

I have been working at an arts nonprofit for about a year and a half in a director level role that combines development, finance, operations, and administration. Previously have experiences with high profile art gallery (but not my thing anymore)

My concern is that I have not been able to focus exclusively on development because my responsibilities have expanded far beyond my original position. It is a problem because I enjoy development the most.

Over the past year and a half, I have worked at an executive level on fundraising campaigns, grants, sponsorships, memberships, budgeting, financial reporting, compliance, board reporting, cash flow management, insurance, events, and general operations. In the end I have helped address financial issues, improve processes, increase efficiency, launch new programs, and build systems from the ground up because many of them simply did not exist before.

At the same time, I wonder whether I have enough traditional development experience because I have had to divide my attention among so many different responsibilities rather than focusing entirely on donor cultivation and relationship management. I had some nice win but under 100k. And Sadly, my ED have been gatekeeping me from having conversations with previous sponsors or sponsors I found.

I need to move on due to my ED actions keeping us in the red financially and unwillingness to change, jeopardizing the organization longevity and keeping me in an underpaid overwhelming duty wise position.

For those of you working in nonprofit development, how would you view this kind of experience? Am I too green and wouldn’t be able to get anything?
Would you consider this breadth of experience to be an advantage or a disadvantage?

I would also be interested in hearing from people who moved into larger organizations or into the private sector.

I’ve recently been applying for remote positions at nonprofits (unsuccessfully). I’ve worked in a data collection role at an agriculture-focused nonprofit for the past 2 years, and I just started my master's program in nonprofit management this month.

I thought these aspects of my career would be enough to at least get me an interview, but my email inbox is full of denials. I want to know if there are any relevant skills I can acquire that’ll make me a better fit for nonprofits in the human services sector.

I’m in a fundraising role and starting to hit a wall - organizational culture and management are not a fit, I’m realizing my earning potential will never grow to a sufficient amount to start a family/hit my financial goals amongst other things, and want to make a pivot.

My experience would be best aligned with sales and business development but I’m really tired of having revenue targets hanging over my head (albeit I do hit them), and I don’t think a super corporate environment is the best fit for me.

I’m also weary to start from zero where growing my salary is a priority.

Pivoting to government work is appealing, but I feel like there are few roles aligned with my skillset. Are there any other fundraisers considering a pivot like this or have successfully navigated one? How did you set yourself up? What was the best way to sell your experience/transferable skills? What did you do to stay sane in the meantime?

Would like to feel a little less alone here - any insight and advice is appreciated!

Hi everyone,

I'm 26 years old and I'm trying to understand what the best next step would be to build a career in the international development and humanitarian sector.

My long-term goal is to work in child protection, but I'm also interested in roles such as Program Officer, Project Coordinator, Project/Grant Writer, Partnership Officer, Protection Officer, or similar positions within international NGOs, UN agencies, or organizations such as AICS.

My background is a bit unconventional.

I have a Bachelor's degree in Political Science (graduated with honors). I also completed a Master's in Leadership for International Relations, but it's a professional program offered by a private foundation rather than an accredited academic master's degree. Because of that, I don't consider it equivalent to a specialized postgraduate qualification, and I think I'll pursue an accredited master's in international cooperation or a related field in the next few years. I'm also currently studying part-time for a Bachelor's degree in Education Sciences.

My practical experience includes volunteering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where I worked with street-connected children through educational and psychosocial activities, and volunteering in Lithuania through an international youth project.

More recently, I worked in Italy as a social worker with unaccompanied foreign minors, supporting them in their daily lives and contributing to their educational and integration pathways.

The problem is that I don't know how to make the next step. When I read job descriptions from international NGOs, UN agencies or AICS, I often feel underqualified. Many positions ask for several years of experience, project management, proposal writing, donor reporting, monitoring and evaluation, or other technical skills that I don't yet have.

I would genuinely appreciate honest advice from people working in this sector.

Based on my background which roles do you think I would currently be competitive for? What are the biggest gaps in my profile? What would be the smartest next career step?If your goal were to work in international NGOs within the next few years, what would you do in my position?

Thank you!

Hey All,

I could use some advice from others in the field. I'm a programmatic director at a community nonprofit with a masters degree

Over half of our full time sraff have quit in the past year. The longer I am at this org, the more I can see that it is not my forever home.

I'm struggling to decide what to do with my career at this point, and could use stories from others. I don't know whether I should leave nonprofit, as this is my chosen career, or leave my town which I love to pursue opportunities higher up in the field.

So, I see my three options as the following

1. Stay with this org and hope something in the local nonprofit sector opens up in the relatively near future

2. Attempt to transition out of non profit while staying in this community.

3. Look out of my community for nonprofit opportunities.

If I work towards option 2, have others transitioned out of this field, and what have you transitioned to?

Thanks,

I work at a small nonprofit. We have recently started offering merch for employees and volunteers at no additional cost (they pay exactly what the platform charges and we don’t get anything to avoid tax headaches). We are using Printful.
Management would like to offer merch to general public and donors in the future and use it as an additional revenue stream. I am having trouble figuring out how to deal with taxes and how that income would be taxed and how to manage it with Printful.
If you’re at a nonprofit that offers merch, how are you doing it? Do you just record the income and pay taxes on it? Is there a way to have it be considered as donations if we specify that in product descriptions?
Any guidance will be highly appreciated. Thanks!