About Blue Avocado • August 30, 2012 • Email Print

This could be the motto for much of the nonprofit sector: to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. Originally said by Finley Dunne about the press, it's a good motto for us, too. Which are you doing today?

As you know, twice a year we do special issues with discounts that last just four days. The last issue was a hit: Blue Avocado readers love free stuff and great deals. Almost 500 people signed up for webinars and the response to the CornerstoneOnDemand offer almost crashed our servers: we got to the "first 100" in 14 minutes.

The one offer we're still waiting on is for our first reader to visit the Top Fun Aviation Toy Museum in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. If you go (free if you say "Blue Avocado") before the end of the year, send us your picture in front of the museum.

* Banking survey: thanks to so many of you who completed this survey sent by our new parent, American Nonprofits. The survey has some rough edges and many of the questions were included because they are required by the National Credit Union Association (which also required the survey). If you haven't taken the survey click here to take the survey for individuals and here for organizations. [As of November 5, 2012 this survey is now closed. Thank you, everyone!]

* Query: for an article on nepotism in nonprofits, let us know your stories.

* Steal a Blue Avocado: don't forget that all Blue Avocado articles are designed to be reprinted in your newsletters, blogs and websites; see our reprint policy here.

* This issue we've got humor columnist Vu Le, an unexpected reflection on the Marriage Equality movement, an upside-down take on Citizens United, a deconstruction of sustainability, and more.

Everywhere I go people tell me they read and enjoy Blue Avocado. Thank you so much, all 64,000 of you, for making our work meaningful. -- Jan Masaoka

About Blue Avocado • August 4, 2011 • Email Print

Each of these webinars is $45, and free for nonprofits insured by the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group. Click on the title of the one you're interested in!

• Expanding Your Board: Recruit 4-6 Great Members, with Jan Masaoka, Wed Sept 7, noon Pacific time. Who you want and how to get 'em. ($45 for everyone)
• A Safety Program for Your Fleet (of Vehicles), with Ann Shanklin of Nonprofits' Insurance Alliance Group, Oct 11, 11 am Pacific time. Reduce your accidents and keep your staff safe.
• Independent Contractor Legalities, with Ask Rita's Ellen Aldridge, Tues Sept 27, 11 am Pacific time. Employee or contractor? And responding to a government audit.

About Blue Avocado • May 18, 2011 • Email Print

We only do this twice a year: In this special issue we have some unusual discounts and free stuff: but each is only good for the next four days! So sign up by Friday, May 27, 5:00 pm Pacific time, or they're gone!

Exceed! Basic fundraising software: Exceed! Basic from Telosa Software can be purchased at $99 or $199, an almost 80% savings for a limited time from May 24th to May 27th. This fundraising software does it all: manage donor records, generate letters (ex: thank you notes and renewals), create reports, manage your mailing lists, and more. It even interfaces with QuickBooks! To help smaller organizations, Exceed! Basic is available at $99 for nonprofits with budgets of $500K or less, and for those of you with a larger budgets of $501K to $1 million it's available at $199: $300 off the regular price. To qualify for the discount and to learn if the software is the right for you and your organization, you just need to sign up for a free webinar within the four days to learn more. For more information, to sign up for a webinar, or to place your order, please click here.

Free Nonprofit Sustainability webinar: Based on the book Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability, co-authors Jan Masaoka and Steve Zimmerman will present a webinar on the Matrix Map tool for understanding and revising your business model to address both financial and mission impact at the same time. If you attend the webinar, you will also receive a coupon for a 25% discount on the book. Thursday, June 16, 11:00 am Pacific time. Click here to register (for free)! Limited to the first 500 sign-ups.

Free webinar on the Legalities of Nonprofits and Social Media: This up-to-the-minute webinar will be led by employment attorney Pamela Fyfe who also co-authors the popular "Ask Rita in HR" column for Blue Avocado. Should you google job applicants? Can you limit what employees say about your nonprofit on Facebook, GreatNonprofits, or Yelp? Pamela will delve into best practices for nonprofit policies and procedures around social networking media. Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 11:00 am - noon Pacific time. Click here to register . . . free! Limited to first 500 sign-ups. This webinar and the Nonprofit Sustainability webinar are free thanks to the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group.

Nonprofit Quarterly: $10 off on a year's subscription. At Blue Avocado we subscribe to Nonprofit Quarterly (and we paid the full retail price!); you should too (subscribe, that is). But just for these four days, you can take $10 off the regular $49 subscription price so it's only $39. Click here and enter this special code -- BLAV2011 -- in the Coupon Code box you'll see on the checkout page.

In the current issue of this print magazine, we especially like the article "Beyond Financial Oversight" by Jeanne Bell that discusses expanding the board's role to one that focuses on sustainability.

IdeaEncore: $100 rebate on the $500 price for creating an online resource library for your association or nonprofit. You choose nonprofit resources and tools and add your own, setting different prices for members and non-members if you like. You then embed your customized, branded library right inside your website. No technical skills required. In an hour you can have a resource library you created with your own brand. To qualify for the rebate, just email info@IdeaEncore.com by the deadline to arrange for an online demo; you can decide later whether to purchase. Click here for complete info.

Two notes from Blue Avocado:

• If you would like to have a special discount to a product or service from your nonprofit or company included in the next Blue Avocado discount mailing, please click here to send us a note and your contact information.
• Don't forget that the biggest discount of all is that you get Blue Avocado in your Inbox every three weeks absolutely free. As you know, we work on the public TV model: free to view but you have to endure a few pledge breaks (like this one) now and again. Donate and become a Blue Avocado member here. Thanks to our 200+ donors! -- Jan Masaoka & the Blue Avocado Steering Committee

About Blue Avocado • July 11, 2010 • Email Print

Blue Avocado is free to its 60,000+ subscribers because of the confidence and commitment that our sponsors and donors have in the unorthodox, practical and fun content we strive for. Please look at the list of members for people you know so you can give them a word of thanks along with ours.

And please consider helping to support Blue Avocado yourself . . . click here for more information on membership levels. Thank you so much! Jan & the Blue Avocado Steering Committee

About Blue Avocado • April 28, 2009 • Email Print

We're grateful for the support we've gotten during our 12 months, and now that our very first birthday is here, we're pleased to share the birthday wishes sent our way by a few of our friends and readers. Please consider "signing" our birthday guest book by adding your own Comment!

Happy birthday to the most clever and refreshing nonprofit newsletter on the block! Congratulations on completing the first of many laps around the sun. -- Alana Conner, Stanford Social Innovation Review

Congratulations to Blue Avocado on an inaugural year filled with penetrating insights and timely ideas always accompanied by a healthy dose of fun.” -- Kathleen Enright, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR FAVORITE AVOCADO!  In only one year you have grown from just a little sprout to a lovely tree that supplies all of us with wisdom and nourishment with just the right amount of spice!  We are so proud to be a small part of your important work.  On behalf of our nearly 9,000 NIAC and ANI-RRG members, we thank you for your practical, interesting, and provocative articles.  Keep them coming! -- Pamela Davis, Nonprofit Insurance Alliance Group

Happy Birthday, Blue Avocado! Awfully precocious for a one-year-old, and wise beyond your year. -- Rick Moyers, Meyer Foundation, Washington, D.C.

I've meant to tell you how much/why I like Blue Avocado...the layout is engaging, the scope is manageable, it provides fresh takes on issues,  and you can tell there are live, thinking, caring humans producing it. I've looked at other things for nonprofits from time to time...and come away feeling overwhelmed... and never engaged on a personal level. Reading those is more like taking care of a chore on a  "to-do" list... rather than having the feeling, "oh, goody, a new Blue Avocado's out today." --Karen Aitchison

What a year! I've had the great privilege of working with the Blue Avocado team to help launch this baby, and as we mark our first anniversary, I'm signing off as senior editor. I've met so many dedicated souls - both virtually and in the flesh and blood - who've done a ton to shore up this occasionally jaded 'I'm over it with nonprofits' editor. That's what makes Blue Avocado great - it's so nourishing! Happy Birthday! - Lynora Williams, Senior Editor

About Blue Avocado • April 24, 2009 • Email Print

If only Blue Avocados grew on trees! But to get them to your in-box, it takes many staff hours to develop ideas from seeds to stories, and coax them along 'til they're ripe for the market and your reading enjoyment.

As you know, every issue of Blue Avocado includes at least one practical article, one thought-provoking article, and one fun article. The originality and quality of our content is why we have 62,000 subscribers, nearly 1,000 visitors to the site everyday, 200 blog mentions per month, and dozens of articles reprinted in nonprofit newsletters across the United States and in many other countires.

We're like public television: free for everyone to read, but we ask our readers to support us with modest membership contributions. Your donations help support our work strengthening our nonprofit sector and celebrating our sector's power, achievements, and promise.

By joining Blue Avocado, you'll receive special Members-Only updates, inside scoops, and invitations to occasional Blue Avocado events. And, with every membership of $45.00 or more, you'll receive your very own Blue Avocado flash drive, ready to plug into your USB port for backing up data, transfering documents, or making into jewelry. :)

• Basic membership: like public television, Blue Avocado relies on members like you to keep it free for everyone to read. Just $20.00!
• Supporting member: support Blue Avocado and get an environmentally friendly Blue Avocado logo flash drive! $45.00 per year
• Blue Avocado Farm Hand: $100 per year, includes 2 Blue Avocado logo flash drives. 
• Blue Avocado Rancher: $700 per year, includes 2 Blue Avocado logo flash drives, Best of the Board Café Second Edition, and six month Resource Directory listing
• Blue Avocado Sponsor: $1,000 per year, includes 2 Blue Avocado logo flash drives, Best of the Board Café Second Edition, one-year Resource Directory listing, and listing in the Sponsors page. Especially recommended for foundations, helping keep Blue Avocado resources available to their grantees and constituents.

So many ways to donate:

> Click to donate to Blue Avocado via credit card using a secure PayPal transaction.
 

> Fax in check or credit card: click here to download faxable form

About Blue Avocado • April 15, 2008 • Email Print

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, blue avocados grew wild and with abandon. Unicorns fed on them. Dragons sometimes mistook them for pterodactyl eggs. A few managed to hitch a ride on a meteor and ended up in Central America, where the ancient Maya cultivated them and loved them. Their priests broke open the seeds to foretell the future. One summer equinox the priests opened an avocado seed and gasped in horror. It foretold the destruction of the Mayan world, and a thousand years of suffering under drought and foreign conquest.

The priests ordered all blue avocados destroyed, in a desperate effort to forestall the prophecy.

But the spirit of the blue avocado lived on, and it waited for many centuries for Al Gore to invent the World Wide Web. There it finally found the fertile soil it had long awaited, and grew strong again as BlueAvocado.org. Today it thrives wherever there are people who have hope in their hearts, and guacamole on their chips.

Actually, we just like the sound of Blue Avocado.