About a year ago, I stumbled upon a surprising source of wisdom: the CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual from World War II. Yep, it was all about disrupting enemy organizations, but believe it or not, we often unintentionally apply those detrimental techniques to our own nonprofits.

Let’s delve into the seven key areas where nonprofits often mirror the CIA's sabotage techniques.

What can fundraisers learn from Chris Voss’ masterpiece, Never Split the Difference? From the power of no to pregnant pauses, this is a book you do not want to miss out on.

CCF fundraisers committed to challenging the status quo are often coming into this sector with intersectional identities and lived experience. This gives them an acute understanding of power, privilege, oppression, and being othered.

My name is Esther and I’m thrilled to announce that I will be joining Maria here at Further Together. If you’d like to know about me personally, feel free to check out my LinkedIn and or more importantly my essay here. But for now, thought it’d make sense to share the story of how I met Maria and joined Further Together; or as I like to call it, “A Tale of Simba and Grants.”

I know firsthand how challenging it can be to approach people and convince them to donate to a cause. Day in and day out, I stood on busy sidewalks, braving all types of weather, trying to engage passersby and persuade them to take out their credit cards and commit to monthly donations on the spot. It was a tough job, but it taught me incredibly valuable lessons about effective communication, psychology, and the art of persuasion.

As someone focused on community-centric fundraising models and equitable philanthropy, one of the challenges you might face is how to talk about white supremacy, capitalism, systemic racism, and wealth hoarding. These topics can be difficult to navigate for many white fundraisers and donors, especially if either party is not familiar with the issues or if they have different perspectives.

In a recent article by CBC journalist Bonnie Allen claims that the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) spends 52 per cent of every dollar donated on fundraising. Here is why that’s misleading.

Nonprofits tend to dedicate themselves to addressing the symptoms of a systemic issue. Navigating dirty money (problems with how money was created) and tainted donors (problems with who is giving money) while balancing fundraising priorities put nonprofits in an ethically complicated spot.

So how can nonprofits understand their role in the systemic problems and approach their fundraising in the least harmful way? How can we effect positive systemic change?