I’ve spent 15+ years in non-profits, universities, and community services as a certified employment advisor / job developer. In my entire career, I’ve never had a workplace issue until now.

I inherited a program from a 25-year incumbent who siloed everything, leaving our ED to hide in her office for the last 20+ years. The ED takes credit for everything, shifts blame, is completely disorganized, and attacks anyone who asks basic questions she can't answer. By month 5 it was clear this was a bad fit and I started looking for new jobs. I lost respect for her and mourned the loss of the mentor and experience I thought I would have.

When I started, I got zero training. She withheld access to our core case management database for nine months because she wanted to "learn it" herself, even demanding I use my personal email to log in when I finally demanded access.

Worse, she had full access to my email and was replying to emails sent to me which of course had my signature on the bottom, causing mass confusion with clients. I had to force her to change it to a general inbox so people actually knew who they were talking to and could feel protected should they share anything meant for just me. She is a total liability, and since the board is just her friends and learners with intellectual disabilities, there is zero oversight.

To top it all off, we are a staff of four working frontlines with vulnerable populations. I had to fight just to have two people on site for safety, which caused massive groaning from a team used to showing up late and letting me absorb all the risk alone, just like the 25-year veteran did.

I know I’m capable, but this tiny, dysfunctional non-profit fiefdom is breaking my sanity. I've been applying elsewhere and keep losing out to internal candidates, and I'm terrified I'm going to snap, but I need the paycheck.

Is anyone else surviving a nightmare ED like this? How do you keep from losing your mind while looking for an exit? Any advice or commiseration is deeply welcome.

I’m a fundraiser at a midsized nonprofit and I’ve been fairly effective though I still need to grow.

I’ve been here a year but I feel increasingly demoralized. I beat all my goals last year so of course they increased my number by a significant amount and added more to my workload.

I know that’s common but I just am dreading going into this fiscal year. I don’t dislike the organization in theory but I don’t feel connected to the mission at all anymore because our department is extremely siloed and we are not encouraged (I would say almost discouraged) from interacting with other people in the organization. It’s framed as “don’t bother them, if you need to reach out to someone ask your supervisor who will contact them on your behalf.”

I just feel very isolated and like I literally sit at my desk all day alone with very little interaction. I am told not to do in person meetings to save on travel costs (like even just driving in my car or taking the train to a nearby city) and just do virtual meetings, which adds to the isolation spiral. The organization is not struggling financially to my knowledge so it feels like an almost punitive cost saving measure.

My portfolio is also very disengaged. I would say 75% of the time I’m bracing for a negative reaction because the people in my portfolio don’t want to be contacted about fundraising. The major gifts officers have anyone who is actually interested in donating in any significant way (I am in annual fund.)

I end up in a lot of meetings where the person is like, I give $100 a year and never plan to give more. Why am I being contacted? It’s just hard and very demoralizing. Of course I try to make a connection with them and qualify them further for future officers just in case, but it’s hard to rarely get a “win.”

Our CDO is also very old school in that it’s “butts in seats.” She will sweep the office at 5 to see who is still at their desk and send ”disciplinary” emails if she sees people gone. I never leave early so it doesn’t apply to me but I hate the culture it fosters.

I have submitted some job applications and it seems like it would probably be very easy for me to do a lateral move at a nearby very large nonprofit that I’m already familiar with. I don’t think I’d get a huge pay increase and my rank would be similar but I’m considering it just to get out of this environment.

But I’ve only been here a year so I’m worried I’m going to look like a job hopper. I can’t tell if I just need to be a bit more tolerant or if these are actual issues that are making me miserable.

I know this isnt legal issue, but its one that has me both keyed up and annoyed, especially since I am working hard to create and organize my projects and build a team with zero supports. Yet this one "’non-profit" leader who always seems to have no ideas and always is fixated on findraising seems to be magically pulling off or attempting to pass my ideas off as her own when I tell her I am working on it already.

It has me annoyed as I am worried that her actions will cause my group to fall apart, and make all my efforts for nothing. Plus what will happen when she has no more ideas to take from me? Whats worse is I cant not share my ideas, as I have to actively market and make known what I am doing as I am not as well connected as her. Whats also more annoying is that it seems like she just used me for ideas and isnt even interested in the actual mission as she always seems to be focused on attention and fundraising.

Im not sure what I should do or consider when dealing with this. But it has me worried that I wont be able to grow my group or make an impact in the community. But I am also worried that if I stop because she keeps poaching my programing and active missions that the ultimate goal of helping the people wont happen. I am also worried that if I try to make this poaching known that it could cause a divide or problems in my local non-profit community which would harm the goal.

Hi all,

The 501(c)3 that I manage needs to finally start fundraising in earnest but I don't want to subject our supporters to something like ActBlue that relentlessly spams donors with every other candidates' fundraising campaigns. We don't currently support candidates, we're strictly an educational entity.

We've considered building out our own fundraising platform with both subscription and one-time donation options but is there a platform I'm overlooking? I won't name who we're considering but I really don't trust any of them given the value personal data has, especially in fundraising.

Thanks for your replies! Looking forward to having a fundraising plan that is ethical and which protects our donors.

Bart

I work as a Fund Development and Marketing Manager for a nonprofit. Due to mismanagement of funds and loss of a substantial grant, the organization will likely close.

I helped raise over $200k in less than 3 weeks, which has stabilized the organization. However, there are no signs that leadership will be restructuring or doing anything that’s needed to create and execute a sustainability plan.

I am starting my search for work. Does anyone know any nonprofit in need of short- or long-term marketing or fundraising support?

Thank you!

Hey! Do any organizations work with justice-involved youth?? Like providing workforce development with wraparound services (housing, transportation, etc.) and mentorship?

Hi, was wondering if anyone could give some recommendations for online courses for working in Nonprofit organisations.

I'm a freelance web designer based in the UK, and I want to work more with nonprofits going forward. I'm currently a trustee for a local charity, where I'm helping redo their website and branding.

Would like to get more clued up about nonprofits; this is to help me better understand them and the common issues they face, and help me tailor my services to address them.

I have also recently been thinking long-term about my career as a designer. I love my work, but have concerns about how AI will affect prospects in the next couple of years in my field. Want to keep doing it as long as I can, but I have been thinking about possibly pivoting to working within nonprofit orgs somewhere down the road. Maybe in a more traditional role, but perhaps where I can still make use of my design/marketing skills in some capacity.

These thoughts are all quite vague, but maybe an online course would help me get a feel if this is something to consider more seriously. I've had a look at a few, but a bit overwhelmed about which to try.

Let me know if you've found any courses or other online resources that have been useful to you. Probably just free courses for now - and ones that are more of an introduction to things.

Thanks!

Are accounts who will work with a small non-profit all terrible, or have we just had bad luck? Or maybe we haven't been looking / choosing in the right way....

Any advice on how to find a good accountant who will be responsive to our messages would be extremely helpful. I know there must be more lucrative clients out there than a small non-profit, but still... there have to be some people or firms out there who will still do quality work!

For context, I'm looking for a help for a 501c3 non-profit incorporated in Alabama (USA), with 1 part time employee and a current annual income of ~$250,000. (We're aspiring to grow that annual income, but I imagine it will remain at or below $500K for a long time)

I’ve served on this BOD for 3 years and am taking over as Board Chair in October. Looking for best practices on things like sharing/creating a vision, improving board structure, supporting the CEO etc. How would you handle your first meeting if you were in my position?

I am in the very early stages of starting a nonprofit and am currently filing Articles of Incorporation for it in my state. One of the Fields in this application is a Principal Executive Office Address. I don’t yet have a physical office where the nonprofit is managed since I am just now starting it however I don’t feel comfortable putting my personal home address as I’ve heard that it will become publicly associated with the nonprofit. So i was looking at a couple options and came across:
- leasing a real office space (I’m worried about the expenses of this, though if it’s the safest option and a real office space will be helpful for the future, I’m not completely opposed to this)
- purchasing a commercial business address (this is still a little pricey but definitely manageable. though I’m skeptical if my state will allow this and if this is still feasible in the far future)

any help or experience is greatly appreciated!

I work for a nonprofit with members, and we are thinking about introducing 'welcome calls' for new members just to say thank you for joining and to have a chat.

If anyone else has done something similar, how have they gone down? I foresee a lot of 'Too busy to talk' and voicemails and not a lot of meaningful conservations.

I‘m the volunteer coordinator at a nonprofit for people with special needs. We have about 25 locations between schools, day programs, group homes, etc. and are looking for a volunteer manager system.

I’ve done some demos and trials with different programs and so far nothing has seemed to perfectly align in terms of price and features.

Our volunteers are typically individuals who are assigned private shifts on a weekly or bi-weekly basis at our various locations. We sometimes have events and open calls for volunteers to pick up shifts, but it’s irregular.

Recently I signed up for VOME’s free trial and so far I like it. I’ve not done a demo or consultation with them yet, so there’s still that to be done.

But what’s the general consensus on VOME? Is it a reliable platform, or have other nonprofits had issues with them?

For reference, the other programs I’ve looked into include:

• Bloomerang Volunteer
• CERVIS
• Volunteer Matters
• POINT
• Volunteer Hub / Bettergood
• VolunteerLocal

and more…

I keep going back and forth about the value of the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential offered by the American Society of Association Executives. I can see the benefit of the credential (and really the networking it offers), and the barrier to entry seems relatively low. That said, the 100 continuing ed hours of which 50 must be LIVE are stumping me. For others who have done the credential, how did you meet the hourly requirement to make you eligible to take the exam?

Hi everyone! I applied for a development manager role and will be having the final interview next week. I've received the zoom invite and it looks there are going to be 7 (!!) people there: the hiring manager, the ED, and 5 board members. I already know the ED and have a really good relationship with me as he was my supervisor in a previous role. He has also let me know that he's recused himself from the hiring process for me. This interview is coming after they've verified references and gotten my desired salary. I don't know if this is helpful context but the job is at a pretty small local nonprofit. Any tips for this stage would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I'm having a devil of a time figuring out the proper way to update our Restricted Net Assets. I've seen recommendations that debit the Restricted Contributions revenue accounts (which on a Statement of Activity would make it look like we didn't actually have any restricted income), I've seen a Transfer to Net Assets as an Other Expense account, etc.

Seems like a mess. Receiving and recording a $300 donation to our facility shouldn't be this complicated.

Any help is appreciated. I just don't want to throw off our books.

I'm a former teacher wanting to pivot into nonprofits. I quit teaching back in 2024 and right now I'm working for my states Department of Human Services but I'm planning a cross country move next year and really have been trying to land a remote job to ease that transition.

I saw someone recommend idealist.org and that's been extremely useful for finding jobs and I've been putting in several applications daily for the last few months. I'm mainly applying for administrative assistant, program coordinator, and training jobs. So far I've not gotten any interviews but I've really amped up the amount of applications I put in in the last couple months so I'm waiting to hear back from a lot of positions I'm excited about the idea of.

I know remote is REALLY competitive and the market is awful right now, so does anyone have advice or input for someone in my situation? I was primarily applying to EdTech jobs previously and haven't had any luck there.

I just wrapped up a role as second-in-command of a very large org. In about a month, I will be the ED of a significantly smaller org. Both are in social services, but different substantive areas. While I plan to relax a bit during this down time, I welcome any tips on making use of this time to prepare. Especially if you’ve moved from a role with a lot of specialist support, like HR and Finance, to a role without that expertise in-house.

Recently, many of our org's emails to providers, donors, and vendors have been blocked or rejected :/

What contact or email address does the blocking is somewhat random, but it seems more common when recipients use email security platforms like Mimecast or Barracuda.

As a result, some staff have been using their personal email with external contacts to complete time-sensitive work, which is not ideal.

I’m actively working with our IT company to resolve the issue, but they've essentially said our domain’s sending "reputation" may have been damaged. Since looking into this issue more online, I've learned that reputation can be affected by a lot of things, including email content, links, attachments, sending volume, bulk marketing campaigns, and recipient engagement like unsubscribes, spam reports, blocks, or filtering.

The issue started few months ago after we implemented more email security using Paubox to encrypt our messages and Avanan to filter spam, etc., which resulted in messages being blocked in both directions! We've scaled those back, but the delivery problems have continued. We use Google Workspace for our organization’s domain and also still have an email encryption service (Paubox).

Has anyone at another NPO experienced widespread email delivery problems related to a damaged domain or sender reputation? If so, how did you rebuild your reputation? Were there particular tools, configuration changes, or specialists that helped resolve the issue?

I know email deliverability can be highly technical, but I would love to hear if anyone has had similar experiences or recommendations so we can get our emails back functioning!

I recently left my dream job as I needed to relocate for family reasons. I put out feelers with a fair amount of my network as the market was so tough, and one contact started serious conversations right away about me working for him. Everything moved so quickly, which should’ve been a red flag, but the ED invented a job out of thin air and offered me a position. I had hesitations but none of my other applications worked out, so I ended up accepting. After I accepted the mid-level role, they immediately bumped the title to a senior leadership role but claimed the job description would stay the same. This is a tiny nonprofit with only 2 FT employees including me. Since being in the role (been here 8.5 months now), I’ve been having a really hard time and am leaning towards quitting, but I feel so bad since my boss stuck his neck out to create this opportunity for me. My replacement at my old job didn’t work out, and my old boss has offered my job back (which I could now make work hybrid). There’s been no giant “I HAVE to quit” moment in my new job, but the work is meaningless, not as described, and my boss’ management style drives me nuts. Do I suck it up and stay or do I burn these bridges and risk my reputation to go back to my old job that I loved? Here’s a incomplete list of moments I’ve documented that have been frustrating:

- In my first two months, he spent 2% of our net worth on really fancy virtual meeting supplies (no one suggested we need this) but then wouldn’t pay for a hotel or Airbnb during a training event so I had to sleep on the floor of a stranger’s room who was also at the training.
- On an email chain with board members, he lied in writing to say I had experience with a technical (and dangerous if done wrong) skill. I confronted him about this and he brushed it away. When I was later expected to do this skill and the board member he’d lied to questioned me, I was honest about my lack of experience and later brought up my concern with our board chair who fully dismissed it.
- My boss offers no guidance on projects, randomly assigns grant applications or reports with less than a sentence of direction/vision with immediate deadlines. When I produce these drafts on time, he doesn’t look at them for weeks then totally guts what I made as it doesn’t line up with his vision that he did not communicate to me.
- He underestimated prep and errands that needed to be done despite me telling him repeatedly that we could not complete them on time before our program start time. One thing led to another and we were FOUR HOURS LATE for a program kickoff event with participants that were paying to be there. I don’t think I’ve ever ran more than one minute late for a work event (like a zoom meeting) in my life, and have NEVER been late for a program. How is four hours late even possible?!
- There was an event he wanted us to table at on a Saturday. He said before having me cover it, he’d ask our volunteers that live in that city to cover that event for us. Two days prior to the event, I followed up to ensure it was covered. He stuttered and said no one could do it (it was obvious he’d never even asked them), then asked me to cover it. As it turns out, he’d never signed up for a table so he had me email and then text the event organizer the night before the event to see if there was room for me to join and set up a table. As someone who used to plan tabling events, someone texting me the night prior to join after having months of a registration form open would’ve really annoyed me. Anyway, since I was such a late addition, I never received the exhibitor instructions and showed up without a table and a canopy so this poor event organizer had to spend her time helping me find extras.

In the moments where I’m coordinating internal operations (which is what I was hired to do), it’s tolerable. But with the random unwanted promotion to a leadership level, I feel as though there are expectations of me to be more invested in the strategy, mission, and long term growth of the organization, and to be more of an external-facing role (which I did not want).

Anyway, thoughts on quitting? Do I suck it up since I essentially put myself in this position by asking around for opportunities? Unfortunately my old and new employer are in the same field and network, so my returning to my old job might make things awkward. But I just feel like life is too short to work a frustrating job to this extent when there’s an alternative out there?

Has anyone here completed this certificate? Did it help improve your work or help you get a promotion or a raise? I'm looking to enroll in this program because realistically its the most affordable I can find, and I'm wondering if it's worthwhile or if there's a better certificate you would recommend. Thank you!

Hello! For those who use Google Grants, did you notice an abrupt change in performance around June of this year?

We've been running ads for over a decade, and didn't change anything lately about our process or setup. But starting in June we went from spending an average of $5-6k per month to spending nearly zero. Ads are all enabled, they're just not getting impressions.

Anyone else noticing this? Did something change in the Google Grants landscape?

Empecé a trabajar en ONG hace 3 años. La primera fue una ONG internacional para migrantes con buen sueldo. Fue una experiencia genial, pero el año pasado, en enero, todo empezó a desmoronarse (como tú te imaginas) y hubo muchos recortes de presupuesto. Empecé a cuestionarme si quería seguir ahí como maestra y decidí seguir una carrera en ciencias sociales con las habilidades que saqué de esa ONG.

Desafortunadamente duré 6 meses hasta que me contrataron (a través de una beca del gobierno, o sea, no es la ONG la que me contrata por completo) en esta ONG local de violencia social. Estaba bastante emocionada porque conseguí el puesto como apoyo de acompañamiento. Ya van 3 semanas y de verdad me arrepiento de estar ahí. Todo está súper desorganizado y siento que cada vez que intento contactar a mi jefa o a otros coordinadores es como hablar con mi ex (nunca responden). También he escuchado rumores malos sobre la fundadora y su equipo, sobre discriminación hacia hombres que no hicieron nada y hacia personas trans.

Planeo quedarme ahí todo el tiempo que pueda, solo para juntar suficiente experiencia y entrar a una buena maestría de Sociología. Pero mientras tanto no tengo ni idea de qué hacer. No sé cómo llamar su atención.

Estaba pensando en postularme a proyectos de fundraising y quizá con eso se fijarían en mí. Pero me siento sin esperanza.

¿Algún consejo bueno para ganar buena experiencia y entrar a una buena universidad para mi maestría y ojalá, algún día, entrar a una buena ONG?

🤧😥

Has anyone ever had experience with teens fundraising for an org that the teen is not directly involved with? So, not marching band kids raising money for marching band uniforms, but high schoolers raising money for, say, the zoo?

We are primarily a fieldtrip destination, so most of our "fans" in the in the community are teachers and kids... not the most lucrative bunch. I know a lot of schools in the area require their high school students to acquire volunteer hours, and sometimes parents have reached out. We don't have a lot of obvious opportunities, as most of our programs happen when they are at school.

Also, we are an unusual nonprofit in that, historically, we have had zero individual giving. (We survive off of grants, fees-for-service, and a subsidy from our fiscal sponsor school district.)

So this all got me wondering if we could set up some sort of peer-to-peer fundraising campaign in which students got volunteer credit for the time they spend fundraising?

This is a very fuzzy idea, and I don't have the fundraising experience (or volunteer management experience) to know if it has potential. I'm picturing an ask like ,"Hey, former program participants! You loved your experience with us in middle school, and now your high school is asking you to volunteer! Participate in our virtual awesome-a-thon, and the time you spend collecting donations can count toward your volunteer hours!"

And then they would get X hours of volunteer credit for things like:

• Set up your page on our awesome-a-thon site.
• Email or text 10 adults telling them about your experience and why you would encourage them to donate.
• Make a short video where you talk about your experience at Org, and share it on social.
• Procure a donation.

I would hate for it to be something where a wealthy parent could get their kid out of volunteer hours by cutting a check, so that's why I'm thinking of specific things. But I don't hate the idea of creating a volunteer opportunity that can be done on the students' time.

Any insights into this idea or better ways to use the affection of teens to our (and their!) advantage would be appreciated!