3 Challenges Facing Today's Nonprofits

pexels-photo-449609Throughout the year, we post encouraging blog posts about nonprofit industry trends, tips and tricks, inspiration, and happenings. However, as the political landscape, technology and the world around us continue to change, our industry must, too. With that, nonprofiteers are facing new challenges and issues head-on.

This post by MissionBox highlighted three key issues that today's nonprofits are encountering, and we think that, based on our immersion in the nonprofit industry, they couldn't be more spot-on. They first highlighted the challenge of continued funding. While this has been an issue since the dawn of the nonprofit, the trend is not changing anytime soon.

"With government grants getting tougher to come by, it is extremely important to find creative ways to stretch your dollars and make them count."

We have found this to be true, as the philanthropists we work with go out of their way to creatively raise more money and make the most out of the funds they have available to them. Additionally, changes in tax laws could greatly affect nonprofits financially. And this doesn't just put a damper on their event-planning and fundraising efforts; it makes it extremely difficult for them to recruit and retain the right talent to keep the organization running, as competitive benefits packages and salaries are vital to finding the perfect employees.

MissionBox also emphasized the struggle some nonprofits have with maintaining a dedicated, talented and skilled group of volunteers. For many nonprofits, having a pool of volunteers is essential and weeding out the ones who don't perform strongly, don't share your vision or who are unreliable is difficult. Having a volunteer strategy in place is just as important as having volunteers.

Lastly, as technology advances and laws change it becomes more difficult for nonprofits to remain compliant. MissionBox put it aptly:

"As the expression goes, you don’t know what you don’t know. Having an expert help identify where you stand from a regulatory perspective is extremely important. The last thing your nonprofit needs is a labor violation or some other misstep that turns into bad press for your organization."

The new tax reform, as well as evolving nonprofit tech means that nonprofits have to be up-to-speed on new regulations. Making sure that your organization has access to experts who can brief you on these is extremely important because no one wants the IRS, Department of Labor, etc. breathing down their necks!

As a nonprofit, what are some challenges that you have faced and how have you taken steps to overcome them? How are you moving forward in a responsible, savvy and agile way? We want to know!