Considering a capital campaign? Where do you start? Start by asking and answering six vital questions designed to prepare your nonprofit to enter the process. Designed for executive directors, development leaders and board members, this session will allow you to consider the questions for your own organization while exploring real-world examples from professionals with more than 18 years of capital campaign fundraising experience.
David Heinen, Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy, North Carolina Center for Nonprofits
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and America’s racial reckoning of 2020, communities are clear the only ways to rebuild, re-energize and recover are to work collaboratively to address complex social problems. It is no longer enough to focus on strengthening individual nonprofits with the hope of enabling them to meet community residents’ needs. Yet, the mere commitment or desire to collaborate, no matter how strong, has never resulted in successful solutions to even the tamest of community challenges.
Many nonprofit service providers would gladly work themselves out of a job if solutions could be found for the most pressing issues of our time. However, we are generally so overextended just treating the symptoms of social and environmental problems that it can be difficult to engage effectively, if at all, in changing public policy and other structural conditions. The result is a nonprofit sector that too often does for people, rather than pursuing social change with them, which can reinforce barriers to advancing equity.
Equity and inclusion are at the center of a nonprofit’s mission. What can nonprofits do to build strong partnerships among the communities served and donors? How does an organization expand its fundraising strategy to involve donors who may not have been included in the past? What are the ways all supporters can feel a sense of belonging as we work to create a stronger community?
Over the last two years, the learning and action network Learning for Equity: A Network for Solutions NC (LENS-NC) has focused on increasing educational equity for low-income students and students of color with diagnosed and undiagnosed learning differences. The network is a partnership between nine organizations across NC, MDC, and the Oak Foundation Learning Differences Programme.
The Standford University Law School Mills Legal Clinic has provided a sample collaboration memorandum of agreement.
Rules of the Game: The Bolder Advocacy Podcast - "Nonprofits are important advocates on issues critical to every community, but sometimes the rules and regulations of advocacy can be barriers to entry. In Rules of the Game, Bolder Advocacy attorneys use real examples to demystify these laws to help 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofits be bolder advocates, whether holding elected officials accountable, educating candidates, engaging voters, or lobbying for policy change."
Before two nonprofits in conversation about joining forces proceed with the legal aspects of merging two legal entities, they may wish to formally assess the nature of the relationship via Meeting your match: How to identify, assess, and engage a potential merger partner by LaPiana Consulting.
The Nonprofit Radio Show - Hosts Nancy Bacon and Sarah Brooks created a podcast aimed at board or staff members of small nonprofits. Each episode has a corresponding webpage with the recording, topic description, plus reflection and discussion questions for the listener and their team.