The FAMCare Blog

Nonprofits mostly start with great ideas and big hearts trying to address a problem nobody else seems to care about. From Doctors Without Borders to Feeding America, Americares Foundation, Direct Relief, and United Way Worldwide, there are countless examples of large, successful nonprofits around us—but even these were only just ideas at some point.

Many nonprofits may have started around the same time as these successful ones, but we don’t even know about them—probably because they’ve ceased to exist.

As a budding nonprofit, here’s what you need to avoid.

Turning the calendar page to welcome a "new" year is an ancient time-keeping practice. Celebrating a "new" year is still the perfect opportunity to pause and take stock of life's evolving circumstances and prepare our minds and hearts for the task at hand.

Another whirlwind of a year is coming to an end, and sadly we still haven’t said a final goodbye to the pandemic.

But there’s something festive and warm about December that even coronavirus hasn’t been able to touch. In fact, if anything, the pandemic has brought people’s hearts together like never before, and the giving spirit is stronger than ever.

This is why it’s time to seize the opportunity and put your best foot forward for planning the year-end campaign to ensure your organization has a great start to 2023! That’s right 2023! 

Here are a few tips to get you started for your 2022 year-end fundraising campaign.  

Sometimes this blog can do nothing more than report the devotion to service demonstrated by social service agencies and nonprofits across the country. Four nonprofits reached far outside their comfort zone to help mitigate the devastating effects of COVID-19. Here are their stories.        

“2020 has been a year of societal upheaval so massive it is like a rent in the Universe...and a tipping point has been reached.” (NPQ, Spring, 2020)

Nonprofit Role More Vital Than Ever

In this unprecedented environment the vulnerable population designation that is nonprofit’s primary area of concern is spreading wider and deeper across American society.

The COVID economic downturn has nonprofit management shifting into emergency mode. “Putting on the brakes” would be an understatement. Nonprofit sustainability, or the ability to continue delivering relevant social impact over the long term, has always been important to nonprofit leaders. But as the spread of COVID-19 causes upheaval in just about every aspect of society and highlights the deep social inequities many nonprofits are working to address sustainability is becoming even more of a top priority.

We are suddenly sailing in uncharted waters. A deadly viral pandemic has infected the entire world. So many people are in distress. They need so much help. Nonprofits, as they always do, are responding. But in these troubled times, the nonprofits themselves will need help.

Overwhelmed by your client’s need, it’s possible to neglect your own vulnerability.

The nonprofit universe is vast and varied. According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations are registered in the U.S. This number includes public charities, private foundations and a wide array of other nonprofit organizations like civic leagues, fraternal organizations and even local chambers of commerce. Because we work every day with a variety of nonprofits all across the country, it is important for us at Global Vision Technologies to have a clear picture of the nonprofit universe in order to gain insight into the challenges nonprofits face. Here is the nonprofit big picture.

In our 2015 report, The Aging Tidal Wave, we dealt with the healthcare crisis that was about to overwhelm the long-term care industry. The aging baby-boomer population was growing rapidly while the number of caregivers was actually declining.

My research analyst asked me a simple question the other day that led to some amazing revelations about the nonprofit world, “What is the largest nonprofit in the world?”