As with most nonprofit ventures, Blue Avocado has taken some interesting twists and turns in its first ten years. As the major funder of Blue Avocado throughout its history, the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group has always been cheering for the success of Blue Avocado from the sidelines, with no intention of taking it on as a project. However, when American Nonprofits recently launched its Bridge to Bridge Loan Fund for nonprofits and decided it needed to focus on that initiative, our boards of directors at the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance Group gladly welcomed Blue Avocado into the fold. We are determined to help Blue Avocado remain the best free source of practical information for small- and mid-sized community nonprofits everywhere.

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As someone who began her career as a fund raiser and migrated to become a funder as head of a large corporate foundation, I have a somewhat unique vantage point on the struggle many nonprofits endure when engaging funders and major donors to support their cause. In speaking with executive and development officers who are charged with fundraising, I find it most helpful to convey some simple principles that I applied to maximize the return on the time and energy I put into achieving optimal fund development results. Read more

Although the Blue Avocado audience consists of community-based organizations, we can still learn from the experience of those who started a nonprofit out of their basement and grew to be nationally recognized leaders in the field.

DonorsChoose.org is one such organization. Started by Charles Best in 2000, it's a crowdfunding platform for public school teachers. The nonprofit was started in his own Bronx classroom when Charles needed resources for his students, and he found a way to connect people who want to help. Read more