Microsoft offers nonprofits free cloud services
Microsoft’s philanthropic arm has announced that it’ll donate $1 billion in cloud computing resources over the next three years to nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations worldwide. The donation is part of an initiative that includes providing a suite of Microsoft cloud services, expanding access to cloud resources for 900 faculty researchers at universities and reaching 20 underserved communities in 15 countries with broadband connectivity and cloud services.
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Minutes of your board’s meetings may seem like a mere formality, but they’re much more than that. Board meeting minutes reflect on your board of directors and your organization’s actions. Savvy nonprofits don’t bunt their way through creating these documents — they try to hit them “out of the park.”
The U.S. Department of Labor’s new overtime rules, which will make many more employees eligible for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), take effect December 1, 2016 — and nonprofits aren’t exempt. Even if an organization isn’t covered by the FLSA, its employees may be covered as individuals and thus eligible for overtime. Make no mistake: The new rules could have significant repercussions for the compensation of your white-collar workers — and, in turn, your ability to provide services. 
Nonprofits generally mature along a standard life cycle. An organization’s first steps are typically followed by a period of growth, which, ideally, is less eventful and stressful than those early years. The growth stage — beginning two or three years after “birth” and continuing until “maturation” at around age seven — isn’t without challenges. But this period also comes with a sense of accomplishment and the opportunity to diversify and bring in new staff and donors as the organization comes into its own. 
Has your organization outgrown its bylaws? Sometimes, as a nonprofit expands and matures, the guiding rules set when it was just a twinkle in its founders’ eyes need to be revisited and brought up to date. 
Seventy-two percent of respondents in software provider Abila’s Donor Loyalty Survey say their decision to give is affected by an organization’s messaging. In February 2016, Abila surveyed 1,136 U.S. donors of all ages who had made at least one donation during the previous 12 months. 
With the end of the year on the horizon, your supporters may be thinking about making charitable contributions they can deduct on their 2017 federal tax returns. If you want to keep those supporters on your side, though, you need to explain that different types of donations can carry different tax benefits — and some donations aren’t deductible at all. 
Online nonprofit revenue in 2016 grew by 14%, and email revenue grew by 15%, according to a new study by nonprofit consultants M+R. Based on input from 133 nonprofits, “Benchmarks 2017” found that Web traffic, email list size, Facebook fans, and Twitter and Instagram followers were all on the rise in 2016, while most individual email metrics were down. For example, the emails opened per number delivered fell 7% overall, for an average just under 15%.