What is Blue Avocado?

Blue Avocado is a nonprofit online magazine for community nonprofits. We publish on the 1st and 15th of every month through an HTML newsletter delivered to more than 50,000 subscribers. Thanks to its sponsors and members, Blue Avocado subscriptions are free.

Blue Avocado is guided by a Steering Committee of its founding sponsors and leadership:

Jan Masaoka, Director & Editor in Chief
Lynora Williams, Senior Editor
Jeanne Bell, CEO, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services
Susan Bradshaw, VP Marketing/Member & Broker Svcs, Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group
Pamela Davis, President and CEO, Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group
Nelson Layag, Project Director, Silicon Valley, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services

Blue Avocado operates under the auspices of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Donations are tax-deductible.

Blue Avocado aspires to be a new kind of online magazine. Here's how:

Blue Avocado speaks for and from the people in community-based nonprofits.
And "community-based" isn't the same as "small." While many community nonprofits are small, some have budgets in the tens of millions and thousands of staff and volunteers. Some small nonprofits aren't community-based; they may be the vehicles for individual expression, or have been set up for technical reasons. Community organizations come out of constituencies and hold themselves accountable to those constituencies. Nurturing the community organizations movement is Blue Avocado's purpose.

Blue Avocado aspires to high quality journalism and analysis.

At Blue Avocado we promise every effort not to talk in the abstract jargon that dominates our sector and deadens our senses.
After the soft-pedaling and nonprofit-ese we've all gotten used to, Blue Avocado might sound overly blunt or direct. We're trying to say what's on our minds. Our aim is to be completely practical, completely usable.

We know that you are not the same as your organization.
When nonprofit literature says, "you," it usually means the organization. For example, "you should have a conflict-of-interest policy," really means, "your organization should have a conflict-of-interest policy." We know you are committed to your organization's mission, but you have interests and concerns beyond it. We mean you the individual: a person with a complex heart and a multifaceted mind.

Writing articles about racial, ethnic and other important kinds of diversity is less important to us than integrating our viewpoint on social justice into everything we do.
A belief in recognizing multiple cultures is intrinsic to what we do and who we are, and this belief is embedded in everything Blue Avocado, not just talked about.

We hear America's nonprofit staff, volunteers, leaders, and constituents singing.
To mix metaphors, we want Blue Avocado to be filled with this song.