Each week we try to bring you a collection of links that highlight political news that impact nonprofits, helpful links for nonprofit professionals, the importance of sharing stories, and something positive to end your week.
Helpful Nonprofit Links
- If your nonprofit organization is seeing a decrease in Twitter followers of late, it’s likely due to recently suspending more than 70 million accounts. While the decline in followers hurts your analytics, it’s a healthy update for the platform. Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin from the Washington Post provide the details.
- Richard Turner writes about how the funnel model in fundraising is broken and that it’s a great time to be fundraising.
- BDO Institute for Nonprofit Excellence recently published a report about the financial health of nonprofits. Unfortunately, the study is heavily influenced by a sample of nonprofits that have high-end annual revenues. Only 13% of the nonprofits surveyed have total assets of less than $50M. Ruth McCambridge from NPQ explains why this is short-sided. On the subject of large nonprofits, the Winston-Salem chapter of the Susan G. Komen organization closed in late June, the latest closings of local Komen chapters. Richard Craver from the Winston-Salem Journal discusses the closing and what it means.
- Vu Le writes in a Stanford Social Innovation Review article about how giving up is a critical part of leadership.
- Social Media Today shares two articles about Facebook that may be helpful for your work. Andrew Hutchinson details how Facebook is adding a stories archive and providing users with the ability to use the stories as posts. Sarah Aboulhosn describes how Facebook ads are changing how universities market themselves to potential students.
Political News
- Over the last few weeks, there have been several key U.S. Supreme Court decisions. David Callahan from Inside Philanthropy describes how nonprofits shape decisions.
- Ruth McCambridge from NPQ digs into ACLU’s numbers and how they’re spending the significant increase in money they have received.
- Benjamin Wermund from Politico details how the Trump administration Justice Department is dropping affirmative action guidelines. This statement from the American Council on Education may also be helpful.
- Lambda Legal shares nine friend-of-the-court briefs urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to uphold the lower court ruling in Karnoski v. Trump and maintain the ban on implementation of the Trump administration’s discriminatory ban on transgender military service.
- NonProfit Quarterly will be running a series this week on how to build a more democratic economy. Steve Dubb writes an introduction to this series focused on why building a more democratic economy is important for nonprofit organizations.
- Andrew Jacobs from the New York Times reports on how the United States government backed out of a World Health Assembly resolution to encourage breast-feeding due to pressure from infant formula manufacturers. “The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid.“
Sharing Stories
- Stories from families and children impacted by the Trump Administration’s family separation process are deeply disturbing. Lisa Desjardins from PBS News read through 99 declarations included in a lawsuit filed. against the Trump administration and selected 12 that offers a window into the family separations at the border.
- On an uplifting note, Pamela Grow shares MJ Hegar’s story and video for candidacy as a United States Representative in Texas 31st congressional district.
- The Ford Foundation regularly shares perspectives from individuals doing innovative work in the nonprofit sector. This piece from Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, writes about the coded gaze and how individuals can make some of the most commonly used technologies more inclusive.
Something Fun
- If you need a palate cleanser, let’s hope one day we can all get as excited as this puppy is.
- Finally, these kids are practicing their “Neymar”
Image: PBS News Hour