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What are best practices when establishing a new 501c3 funding arm for an existing nonprofit?
I'm working with a nonprofit in "Start-Up" mode that has actually been established for about ten years, but is now seeking new sources of funding (they were primarily funded by a single donor). Now that we've applied for a separate 501c3 as a "Friends Of (name of nonprofit)", what are our best practices for explaining this…
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Trust Based Grant Agreement Language - care to share a sample?
Hey everyone, With a new year comes fresh perspective (and new questions)! I'm looking for a handful of grant agreements from family foundations that could help us potentially reframe the "Grant Terms" section of our agreement. Bonus would be trust-based agreements, but all types would be helpful. I'm curious to see what…
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Scoring Preferences
Hi everyone! We are doing an audit of all of our scholarships and one question that has come up is what the best practice for scoring preference criteria is. For example, some of our scholarships have a preference for those with financial need or a preference for those that live in a certain area. Currently, we score these…
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Help Finding a Web Designer for Donation Landing Page
Hello Compass Community! Crown Point Community Foundation is currently looking to work with a web designer to help format our donation landing page. We have over 300 Funds that we would like to organize in accordion menus with a search option at the top. If you have an example, please send the link to your donation landing…
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Grants to Government Entities
Hi all, Due to the nature of our grantmaking, we often end up granting to military installations, national parks, public schools, etc. I've been struggling with how to manage these entries in Foundant when every organization is essentially filtered by their EIN. We have a ton of applicants who, rightfully, end up entering…
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Scholarships to a for-profit school
Hi everyone, We have an org fund that is the "friends of," or fundraising arm of a for-profit school. The "Friends of" Fund wants to distribute scholarships to the for-profit school to eligible students. Do any of you manage anything similar to this scenario? Thanks for any insight! Lori Sellers Trenholm Director of…
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Best Practice for Donor Record Retention in CRM Software
I am wondering if anyone has best practices for how long you keep an inactive donor's record in a database? We keep all donation history in our accounting system but our CRM (DonorPerfect) charges based on number of profiles, so we have been culling some small batches of donor records to stay within the current bracket for…
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Submitting grants to board for approval
Our board allows staff to approve grants $5,000 or below as long as due diligence has been completed. Our grant committee approves anything above $5,000 via DocuSign. We currently submit an exhaustive list of all grants processed from donor advised funds, designated funds, scholarships, expense to fund, etc., regardless of…
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RFP for Senior Programs/Projects
Hi all, We are planning to open a call for proposals from local nonprofits to support programs/projects focused on seniors specifically. We want to keep the initial RFP flexible and do not want to add many requirements on the type of program it should be however we are thinking we should avoid funding any programs that…
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Trust-Based Philanthropy
The community foundation I work for is starting research regarding the trust based philanthropy model. I am curious if there are other community foundations out there already engaging in this practice. Can you provide a couple of pros and cons regarding your experience? What has been the biggest challenge?
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Does anyone have experience with non-competitive grant models?
Hello everyone! As grant makers and funders, I'm sure we've all had our moments of wishing that we could fund all of the amazing projects that we have the privilege of reviewing. One of my Board Members recently expressed frustration with the number of applicants we have to turn away due to lack of funds, and posed the…
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Looking forward: Trends and opportunities for 2023
We asked philanthropic leaders and partners to share what they see as a key opportunity in philanthropy in 2023. What is top of mind for you and your organization? What initiatives and ideas are you working on? Share what you're excited about, would love input on, and trends you see for the future! Looking for the Funders…
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Looking forward: what do you think are the biggest trends and imperatives for 2023?
We asked philanthropic leaders to share what they see as the top trends in the months ahead. What is top of mind for you and your organization? What initiatives and ideas are you working on? Let's share what you're excited about, would love input on, and trends you see for the future! Looking for the Nonprofits discussion?…
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Divisions or affiliate?
Where can I find more information about financial reporting parameters and effects on the GL for affiliates and divisions? Here's our situation: we are receiving a farm that will be a separate legal and financial entity. It will be reported on a separate 990 from our organization, yet we'd like to be able to run financial…
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Closing a fund in an invested pool/strategy
1) What are your procedures for closing a fund that is currently in an investment pool? 2) Do you have a policy that explicitly states these procedures that the fund holder receives/signs off on as part of the onboarding process (i.e. Fund Agreement and/or Terms & Conditions)? If so, could you please share? Our current…
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Email Tax Receipts Best Practice
Hi there - we want to start emailing more tax receipts from donations to lower costs (printing, postage, etc.). However, our first stab at using this was extremely clunky. Does anyone have a process they use that they could share? We will be working to collect emails - but in the meantime we need to email what we can, and…
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Are you responsible for getting grant agreements back to the funder?
This task of signing off on grant agreements continues to be kind of muddy at my org. Drives me crazy. A recent awarded grant had 4 forms they wanted completed. 2 were clearly fiscal in nature, 2 were to be signed by AOR with 8 spots for her initials. The forms were on a merry-go-round from me to fiscal to the PI on the…
