This article is part of our Nonprofit Business Startup Guide—a curated list of articles to help you plan, start, and grow your nonprofit business!
Starting and running a nonprofit is richly rewarding in and of itself. As a passionate worker in a charitable organization, or someone who is planning to start one of these organizations, finding resources to help improve your nonprofit is bound to be on your mind.
It’s never a bad time to look into increasing the growth and positive impact of your nonprofit business, and these resources will help you do just that.
Building the foundation
Popular professional networking site Linkedin has a great resource section for nonprofits, covering recruiting techniques and tips for volunteers, employees, and board members.
Idealist.org is a site that hosts job listings in the nonprofit sector and seeks to connect organizations with job candidates and potential volunteers. It also has extensive information on all of the core concepts related to nonprofit creation, structure, and governance.
The National Council of Nonprofits
The National Council of Nonprofits manages a detailed blog broken into relevant sections with articles and resource lists. They provide in-depth information on core concepts of nonprofit governance, as well as up-to-date information on the state of the nonprofit sector and emerging trends.
The National Center for Charitable Statistics
Great for market research, the National Center for Charitable Statistics provides a wealth of information on nonprofits in the United States. You can find statistics organized by state and region, which will make the market research process easier.
The FAQ page is a great place to start, because it helpfully breaks their content into relevant categories for easy perusal.
Free tools and resources
The Foundation Center is a nonprofit that maintains the nation’s largest database of funding organizations, as well as free information on common grant application processes. You can also check out Grant Space, their online learning community for grant-seeking nonprofits.
Network for Good offers a free fundraising resource library, which includes courses, guides, webinars, and ebooks. For example, check out this ebook on maximizing the success of your organization’s events.
Read, listen, and connect
Hubspot’s Nonprofit Marketing Section
Hubspot is a trusted voice in marketing (we use several of their products here at Bplans) and their blog section on nonprofit marketing and SEO opportunities provides a wealth of information that will help you figure out the best way to market your nonprofit. Hubspot’s free ebook on inbound marketing for nonprofits is a good place to start.
Nonprofit Management Associations
New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service has a curated list of national nonprofit management associations that you can use to see which organizations would be a good fit for your nonprofit business to connect with or participate in.
Are you part of a nonprofit that has successfully used any of these resources? Any suggested additions for this list? Let us know in the comments!
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