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Reporting, analysis, and explainers for donors and for the people who run charities.
Donors have been taught to reward charities that spend little on administration, a habit that can starve the organizations best at their work.
By The Game of Giving editors · Locker Room Talk · 2 min read
One is a warehouse and the other is where people pick up groceries, and knowing the difference tells donors where help goes furthest.
Appeals, capital campaigns, Giving Tuesday, peer-to-peer, major gifts, events that raise money, donor retention.
4 storiesMost small businesses cannot write large checks, but nearly all can offer something useful when a nonprofit makes a specific, practical request.
Gifts of $250 or more need a written acknowledgment, and most receipts leave out the one sentence donors need to claim the deduction.
The day itself is short, and the work that decides whether it raises anything happens in the six weeks before it.
When a donor says what a gift is for, the organization is legally bound by it, and tracking those promises is basic stewardship.
Giving trends, benchmark data, grants and foundations, tax and policy changes, budgets, tech and tools.
7 storiesAlmost every charity of meaningful size files a public annual return, and ten minutes with a few sections tells a donor most of what matters.
Donors have been taught to reward charities that spend little on administration, a habit that can starve the organizations best at their work.
More gifts now arrive from a fund rather than a person, which changes how a charity should thank, receipt, and ask.
The budget is often the page a funder reads most closely, and it should tell the same story as the narrative, in numbers.
The cause may be urgent and the need real, but the tax treatment of a crowdfunded gift depends on who receives the money.
Many veterans organizations are organized under a different part of the tax code, and what that means for donors depends on the group.
Tax-exempt organizations can owe income tax when they regularly run a business that has nothing to do with their mission.
Profiles, the gala circuit, philanthropists and families, celebrity giving done right, style at charity events.
Coming soonOur first profiles and gala reports are being reported now. Every subject will be named, and every photograph taken with consent. To suggest a person or an event, use Submit a Story.
Executive directors, boards, hiring and burnout, governance, mergers, the business of running a nonprofit.
6 storiesAn established charity can accept tax-deductible gifts for your project while you find out whether the work should become its own organization.
The rule is automatic, there is no warning letter first, and the usual fix is a brand new application with a fee.
When a new nonprofit applies for exemption decides whether its earliest donations are deductible, and the window closes at 27 months.
The treasurer is not the bookkeeper, and the real job is making sure the whole board understands the money well enough to govern it.
Lobbying cannot be a substantial part of a 501(c)(3)'s activities, and a one-page election with the IRS makes that limit precise.
Nonpartisan voter education is allowed during an election, but anything that favors one candidate crosses a line charities cannot cross.
On-the-ground programs, measurable outcomes, grassroots and diaspora giving, volunteers, local heroes.
5 storiesOne is a warehouse and the other is where people pick up groceries, and knowing the difference tells donors where help goes furthest.
A cleanup looks simple, but most of the work is permission, equipment, and deciding in advance what volunteers should not touch.
The first hour a volunteer spends with you decides whether they come back, so it should be short, specific, and about the work.
Enthusiasm is easy to recruit, but consistency, training, and coordination with teachers are what students in tutoring programs actually need.
Shelters need help, and they also need volunteers who follow their procedures, so here is what most will ask of you and why.
Written by member organizations and labeled with their names.
Updates, events, and reports from nonprofits in the Contributor Network will appear here in their own feed, separate from our editorial coverage and labeled Partner Content. The first contributor posts will be published once founding members are approved.
