Blogs

Coaching your staff to become digital communications pros

By Brenda Jacinto
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Right now, social media managers need help. It’s because staff members need help. Suddenly, everyone on church staff needs to know how to go live on Facebook, create graphics for social media, or upload to YouTube.  Communications professionals suddenly have to not only create but coach at their church. So how can you quickly train staff to do things they may have never attempted before?  Think like a coach. Coaches provide encouragement, training, and resources to players so that the players can walk onto a field or court and do their very best to win the game. We can do that too. Here’s how to coach your staff to become digital communication ...
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[Webinar] Effective Financial Leadership – 3 Steps to Preparing Well for 2021

By Sam Paredes
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Are you ready for 2021? Join Vanderbloemen and AcctTwo as they talk about effective financial leadership. After nine months of living and working in a pandemic environment, day-to-day finance operations look different due to the abrupt changes that COVID-19 has brought to ministry.   On our webinar, you'll learn about: Planning Your Compensation & Benefits Budget Building An Effective Financial Team Implementing Scalable Financial Systems   As we continue to adjust to the "new normal," we're adapting and learning. We're excited to speak to you about the lessons we've learned, technological advancements that we're seeing, and how this ...
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The Difference Between Subscribers and Sustainers

By Kate Johnson
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Recently, Network for Good rebranded its activities focused on recurring gifts and called it   subscription giving.   And as part of the subscription, you would be wise to give donors certain benefits. It indicated that benefits would make people feel more engaged. Then, at a recent webinar, someone asked me what I thought about subscription giving versus sustainers. So here’s my take on the difference. Sustainers   care about your organization and they   make a commitment   to support you on a typically monthly basis with gifts that fit their budget. They want you, as an organization, to succeed and sustain, and they are invested and committed to ...
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Your #GivingTuesday Game Plan

By Brenda Jacinto
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With #GivingTuesday around the corner, here is the website to help you with your game plan! This website is full of templates, ideas​ and strategy to help you develop your day! Find the website here.
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Direct Mail vs Email Fundraising: Choosing the Right Format

By Sam Paredes
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Deciding that your organization needs to fundraise is simple; program expenses are high, you want to grow and do more to serve your cause, and budgets are limited. The harder part is choosing   how   to fundraise. Should you use direct mail, email or some other channel? For simplicity’s sake, we’ll give you some benefits of the two largest fundraising channels to help you pick the best option for your organization. Direct Mail Direct mail has seemingly been around forever. Because of its widespread use, there are a number of   myths about direct mail , such as the idea it’s going away, which simply isn’t true.   Direct mail is still the biggest donation-driver ...
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This Faith-Based Entrepreneur Shares Why You Should Meet The Fear Of The Unknown With Consistency And Practice

By Kate Johnson
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Here is a short inspirational article from Forbes that gives tips on how to approach your fear of the unknown! From the very beginning of her entrepreneurial journey, Tiphani Montgomery has always handled business on her own terms. When her high school classmates were looking to college to shape their careers, Montgomery, a teen mom at the time, had set her eyes on becoming a best-selling author. When she couldn’t afford to buy books on publishing, she spent hours in Barnes & Nobles studying while her daughter was at school. And when she learned that poetry books are rarely picked by publishers, she self-published her poems and went out into the streets ...
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#GivingTuesday: Have You Decided?

By Brenda Jacinto
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Just six weeks away, #GivingTuesday will take place on Tuesday December 1. This day of global giving has grown into an impressive movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate and celebrate generosity. The   average online gift   is $111. It may be an opportunity for you to leverage your community giving, but   you will have to decide if it's worth your attention. Many nonprofits are incorporating #GivingTuesday into their year-end drive, but this year-end giving will be different than years before, and   I explain why here . As you think about whether to focus on this particular giving day or not, here are a few unique ...
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Where Are Your Monthly Donors Hiding?

By Sam Paredes
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A while back, I interviewed   Sami Sheehan of Lollypop Farm,   a tremendous advocate of monthly giving. When we first talked, we decided we’d be back to discuss another great topic: hidden monthly donors. She’s done a lot of research, especially in the areas of workplace, Facebook and PayPal giving. You and your organization may very well have donors who are giving monthly, but for some reason some donors didn’t tell you they joined as a monthly donor — or the monthly donor tracking system is different. You may not be able to recognize them as a monthly donor yet, even though the funds are coming in monthly. Here are a few examples of areas where monthly ...
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Audit Ready Financials for Nonprofits

By Kate Johnson
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You've just wrapped up another audit—or maybe you're in the midst of planning for the next one. How can you be better prepared? Revenue, receivables, and consolidation. Typically, financial statement audits get derailed by deficiencies in these 3 areas. Join Sage Intacct to hear real stories of good and bad audits directly from a financial auditor. You'll learn how cloud accounting software can reduce your audit risk and have you well prepared every time auditors open your books. Join us for this one hour webinar and discover: How to improve your process for preparing audit-ready financials The 3 key steps you don’t want to miss Ways to ensure ...
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Making Professional Development Fun: 10 Best Practices

By Brenda Jacinto
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Here's an article by Matt Hugg on some of his best practices for making professional development fun. This article is from NonProfit Pro. I need to apologize to any conference presenters reading this. Back in the day (you know, about a year ago?) whenever I went to a conference, I loved hanging out at the vendor booths. I enjoyed learning about   new products and techniques , found the people selling them interesting and, truth be told, I couldn’t stand sitting in a room for an hour’s lecture. So if you were presenting at a conference I went to, I’m sorry. And if I did go to your session, and you saw me walk out at some point, please doubly hear my apology ...
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How to Be More Confident in Your Church Finances for 2021 Webinar

By Sam Paredes
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How are you feeling about your ministry’s financial situation for 2021? Join Allison Webb from AcctTwo and Jeff Dunn-Rankin from Ministry Architects on Thursday, October 29 at 1pm CT as they discuss approaching your finances with confidence. Webinar participants will learn: Ideas to boost your giving in 2021 Tips to help trim your budget by 5-15% Effective communication strategies for your leadership, staff, and congregation Thursday, October 29 at 1pm CT Register here: https://ministryarchitects.com/financial-webinar/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=You+can+t+pour+from+an+empty+cup&utm_campaign=October+2020+Newsletter
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15 Essential Steps In Building A Successful Holiday Marketing Campaign

By Kate Johnson
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This Forbes article was written about for-profit businesses but many of these strategies can be applied to your non-profit as well! Creating a successful holiday marketing campaign is both art and science, as marketers need to find the best formula to tap into the holiday sentiment and sell services or products that may have very little to do with the festive mood – all of it in a crowded market where countless other companies are trying to do the exact same thing. To succeed, a company needs to find the best way to blend the inherent beauty and magic of the holidays with their proposal while appealing to the emotions traditionally associated with that time ...
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A Monthly Giving How-To: Use Donor Anecdotes and Your Numbers

By Sam Paredes
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Recently, several organizations asked me for help in making the case to provide an easier donation-processing experience for their donors. Especially during these difficult times, an extra investment may be hard to swallow and even harder to “sell” to leadership and the board. That’s why it’s really important to find all the ammunition you need to make the case. Have any donors reached out and shared anecdotes or messages telling you how hard it was to complete a donation on your website? Do you have any donors who called or emailed you and said they had a bad donor experience, and they needed to make a correction to a gift? When you called your donors ...
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PPP Loan Updates: Simplified Forgiveness of Loans of $50,000 or Less; New Guidance on Deferral Period for Loan Payments

By Chris Grady
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On October 7, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Small Business Administration (SBA) released a  simplified application  (SBA Form 3508S) for forgiveness of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans of $50,000 or less. The instructions for the new application are also available  on the SBA website .    Under a  new interim final rule , recipients of PPP loans of $50,000 or less are not required to perform the salary and wage reduction amount computation or the full-time equivalent (FTE) employee reduction quotient. They will still need to provide documentation for payroll and non-payroll costs as spelled out in the  Form 3508S instructions ...
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5 Ways to Diversify Your Nonprofit’s Revenue Streams

By Sandy McClure
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In 2020, nonprofit professionals have needed to adapt to unexpected circumstances and learn new approaches. You’ve adjusted   campaign goals , settled into work-from-home routines and engaged with donors from a distance. Even with all these changes, the fundamentals of fundraising remain the same.   In fact, during periods of economic uncertainty, a strong foundation is more important than ever.   COVID-19 has underscored the ever present need for stewardship, a compelling case for support and a sound internal structure, just to name a few. One back-to-basics principle that is especially worth revisiting now is the idea of diversifying your nonprofit’s ...
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AcctTwo’s Faith-Based Finance Collaborative

By Brenda Jacinto
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Stay up-to-date on the Faith-Based Finance Collaborative's upcoming events by joining our mailing list: https://www.accttwo.com/faith-based-finance-collaborative   AcctTwo's Faith-Based Finance Collaborative is a time when faith-based finance professionals and leaders can come together. It is so important to lean on trusted advisors and your collective network. Other perspectives, experiences, and expertise can help guide your organization. Our mission with the Faith-Based Finance Collaborative is that you ponder how the future of finance and accounting will impact growth at your organization
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COVID-19 E-Book

By Sam Paredes
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AcctTwo has recently published a new eBook, mainly focused on for-profit businesses but I wanted to share to the Mission:Support Community in case you might find some of the topics relevant to your organization!   Because of COVID-19, businesses and their accounting departments are going through a cycle of shock (and maybe some denial), survival, learning, and adaptation. For those of you who haven’t done so yet, it’s critical to begin the shift into the learning and adaptation phases as quickly as possible so we emerge stronger as a result.   In our eBook we cover some of the following topics: The post-COVID-19 business model requires a proactive ...
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5 Tips for Finance to Thrive While Working Remotely

By Chris Grady
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It’s no secret that the personal and professional lives of most of us have undergone a major upheaval as of late. Most employees have had to adjust to a work-from-home (only) environment for the first time, and many of them have had to do so with their spouses and children in tow.  For finance, this new work environment, combined with a troubled economy is even trickier. I’d argue, therefore, that finance departments are doing some of the most critical and challenging remote work in order to keep the business humming. But their unique issues are often overlooked by how to make the business at large more productive and collaborative.   Although thought ...
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11 Year-End Fundraising Tips⁠ for Nonprofits Already Behind Schedule

By Brenda Jacinto
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Conventional wisdom says to start planning seriously for your year-end fundraising in August — or even earlier! And there’s a reason for that: Anyone familiar with the process knows it takes a lot of coordinated time and effort. “Our most successful clients,” writes Alyssa Conrardy, “start planning their year-end campaigns over the summer and begin working in earnest on campaign collateral no later than September 1.” Conrardy is president and co-founder of   Prosper Strategies , a Chicago-based nonprofit marketing agency. But what if you’re way behind and want to make the best of a less-than-ideal timeline? Conrardy says if it’s already September or ...
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LinkedIn Stories: Highlights for Nonprofits

By Kate Johnson
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For anyone who has ever said or thought “LinkedIn is not Facebook,” well it just got a little bit closer to the social media giant and other similar platforms through its addition of the LinkedIn Stories feature. Recently launched within the last week, whether it is good or bad, the jury is out and is a matter of personal preference. Alas, I thought I would break down what we have been able to learn about it so far and some opinions on how or why you may or may not use it. LinkedIn Stories: What Is It? If you have ever used Facebook or Instagram stories, it is just like that. You can share 20-second video clips, images and/or text as a sequence of content ...
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