The Nonprofit Summer Checklist
Summertime is here! But here in the nonprofit game, that hardly means it’s time for a vacation. You know better than anybody that, even if you’re not actively bringing in donations, doing service work, or holding fundraisers, there’s still plenty of nonprofit work to be done! Liiike…
Boosting Your Social Media Presence
A great time to launch, re-launch, or rebrand yourself on social media is during the summer. School’s out, people are taking more vacations, and with all that extra time, traffic to social media sites increases. So now is the perfect time to put your best virtual face forward!
Developing a Personal Work Plan
You’re a big reason your organization’s charitable work gets done. So it’s especially beneficial to make sure you take some time this summer to review your own personal goals for what you want to achieve during the second half of the year. Think about how you’ll be able to manage your time, workloads, and other specific duties.
Doing Some Summer Cleaning
Like spring cleaning except a season later! Based on everything that’s happened so far this year, you should have an idea of what you’ll need for the second half of 2017. So now’s the time to get organized: sort your inboxes, file donor letters, and update your contributor relationships.
Filing Your Return (If You Need To)
Some of you may have gotten this out of the way in May, but others may have due dates this month! Organizations with certain fiscal tax years will need to file June, July, or August 15 this year for the 2016 tax year. Additionally, if you filed Form 8868 to extend your Form 990 May 15th deadline, you may have until November to actually file, but it wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and get a jump start on it this summer!
A lot of fundraising is done in the later months of the year and now’s the time to go ahead and plan for that. Get your holiday cards printed, write “Thank You” cards for your guaranteed contributors, and make outlines for any seasonal fundraising campaigns.
Reviewing Your Prospects
Go over your organization’s prospects – maybe pull your top 100, or however many you have. Check to see if you need to remove any of them that happen to have moved beyond consideration. You can also verify which ones have officially been added to your organization.
Taking a Look at Your Yearly Plan
Make sure your organization is on track with its proposed plan for this year. Take notes on whether or not your organization is reaching its goals. Also, pay close attention to your donor investments impact and what needs funding in the upcoming months.
Don’t forget to keep the lines of communication open with your organization’s board members and principal officers this summer. If necessary, develop a board meeting calendar to confirm everything’s up to date and let them know the organization’s progress and plans for the year.
Updating Your Database
People move, phone numbers change, and the world spins madly on. So take some time this summer to make sure that you’ve got your organization’s contacts up-to-date and in order.
Of course, there are many, many more things you can do this summer to make sure everything for your nonprofit is organized, up-to-date, and readily available when you need it. But this checklist will certainly help get you and your organization on track for a successful second half of 2017!
