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No matter how your organization chooses to fundraise, you may be overlooking some of the best ideas and strategies that can help you raise more – and, further engage your supporters.

In this post, we cover our top six fundraising ideas for all the shapes that fundraising may take.

Let’s take a look at the breakdown:

1. Turn classic product fundraisers into crowdfunding giants
2. Increase excitement with flash email campaigns
3. Simplify your online donation forms
4. Diversify your social media strategy
5. Capitalize on corporate giving
6. Create high-quality content for fundraising events

These ideas aren’t just about raising more money; they’re designed to help you build donor loyalty, so your supporters keep coming back to your organization.

Classic fundraising products are classics for a reason; they’re effective, universally appealing, and they sell. Think T-shirts, snacks, and sweets, or brick fundraisers. Each of these products is well-known in the fundraising world. Don’t reinvent the wheel, as they say.

Peer-to-peer fundraising allows supporters to sell products directly to their networks of friends and family. Peer-to-peer fundraising lets supporters make natural appeals to potential donors who already know and trust them.

Likewise, team fundraising generally occurs when your nonprofit uses a custom product platform.

Let’s take a look at an example:

If your nonprofit is hosting a walkathon or fun run, you can encourage individual fundraisers to band together into teams. Each team can then create a T-shirt fundraiser, for example. They can design a custom T-shirt that represents their team, sell the shirts to their supportive networks, and then wear them during the event.

For comprehensive information on using team fundraising at events like walkathons, you can check out this Booster resource.

Now, let’s take a look at some strategies to facilitate peer-to-peer and team fundraising:

• Set individual goals. If each fundraising team or individual supporter has a fundraising goal, then they’ll know exactly how much money they need to raise. Goals aren’t just motivation; they provide context so supporters know how much they’re expected to invest in your cause.

• Provide toolkits to your supporters. Since supporters will be reaching out to their networks via their own communication strategies, it’s important that your cause doesn’t get lost in the mix. Provide your teams with toolkits that contain necessary background information on your fundraising campaign, suggested copy for emails and social media posts, and images and videos your supporters can share with their appeals.

• Gamify fundraising. One of the best assets of peer-to-peer fundraising is the opportunity to create competition between your supporters. You can turn fundraising into a game by creating leaderboards that show your top fundraising teams, or by providing badges when supporters reach certain milestones.

The bottom line: You can update classic product fundraisers to give them a wider audience and appeal by integrating them with peer-to-peer and team fundraising.

A flash email campaign is an effective means of creating urgency and excitement during your fundraising campaign. Here’s the gist of this idea: Your nonprofit sends a series of emails in a short period of time.

A flash email campaign keeps your nonprofit’s fundraiser at the front of your supporters’ minds. It also emphasizes the urgency of your campaign, and can result in a flood of last-minute donations, as supporters strive to achieve your fundraising goal. That’s why flash campaigns usually take place toward the end of your fundraising campaign, up to the last day.

You may send several emails over the course of a few days; your intervals will vary depending on the scope of your nonprofit, your campaign, and your donors’ communication preferences. In each and every email, it’s important that you personalize your campaign for your donors.

“Personalization drives response. In head-to-head tests, personalized emails consistently outperform non-personalized communications,” according to this other Abila resource.

In addition to personalization, you’ll want to:

• Clearly state discrepancies. What’s your goal? How much have you raised? How many funds do you need now?

• Be direct. What does your supporter need to do to make up the discrepancy between the goal and the current amount of funds you have?

• Link your supporters to your donation form. Provide a big, clear button that your supporters can click to make a donation.

Each email should build on the one before it, showing how you’re progressing toward your goal. You should thank donors for their support, while still acknowledging what needs to be done. For example: “With your generous support, we’ve reached the $8,000 mark. We still need $2,000 to bring computers to Highland Middle School.”

Of course, you can also take a more soft-spoken approach to a flash campaign, depending on your fundraising campaign. A planned giving email campaign, for example, would likely need more careful and considered language.

The bottom line: Flash email campaigns allow you to build urgency for your campaign and fill in any fundraising gaps near the end of your campaign.

One of the most basic components of fundraising is the online donation form. After all, your donors will have to go through the donation process before your nonprofit can receive their funds. That’s why it’s vital that your donation forms are simple, intuitive, and convenient, as advised by the Lexington Humane Society.

A confusing or long donation form can deter donors from giving. For your fundraising campaign to raise the most money possible, your donation forms need to encourage donations.

To optimize your donation forms, you can follow these strategies:

• Keep the form to one page. Only require necessary information so donors aren’t clicking through multiple pages. The shorter the process, the more likely donors will be to complete it.

• Brand your form. Donors should be able to instantly recognize the donation form as a part of your nonprofit’s website. Otherwise, they may be concerned about giving their financial information to an unfamiliar form.

• Optimize forms for mobile devices. Giving should be incorporated into your donors’ lives. A convenient, mobile-accessible donation page allows donors to give on their own schedules, through their preferred channels.

The bottom line: Donation forms are integral to the fundraising process, and they’re the final appeal to your donors before they decide to submit their donation. Optimizing these forms to create the best possible giving experience can ensure your donors follow through with the process and come back for more.

Your nonprofit is likely using social media mainstays, like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If not, you can learn about the latest updates here to get started. Social media is a tool for both advertising your fundraising campaign and connecting with your supporters and donors. Since each social media platform is different, you’ll need to take a unique approach to each to reach your donors in the most meaningful ways.

Here are some tips for using social media to your advantage:

• Implement donation forms into your nonprofit’s Facebook page. Facebook offers a feature where nonprofits can integrate a “Donate Now” button onto their pages, which takes donors to the nonprofit’s donation form. In your posts, you can direct supporters to this convenient giving option.

• Tweet power words. Since Twitter limits your text to 140 characters, every word matters. Use Twitter to spread calls to action, or to provide attention-grabbing snippets about your campaign (for example, “Why does Lindsay walk 10 miles every day?”) that direct supporters to your fundraising page and cause (“Lindsay walks to get clean water for her family”).

• Post diverse content. Varying your posts between platforms is important, but so is varying your content on the same platform. Videos, infographics, and pictures are just the tip of the fundraising iceberg. You can use all of these tools to reach your donors in different ways.

The bottom line: Social media is an opportunity to communicate with your donors and spread unique content. Use each platform’s advantages to create the most organic and eye-catching appeals for your fundraising campaign.

One of the best ways to maximize your fundraising is by knowing how corporate giving can help your campaign. Corporate gifts can increase your fundraising revenue, support your general fundraising efforts with in-kind donations, and help you leverage your donors’ business affiliations. But first, your donors have to know about the corporate giving opportunities available to them.

During your fundraising campaign, you’ll want to promote:

• Matching gifts. When an employee gives to your organization, their company may opt to double the employee’s donation. Some companies may even triple the donation!

• Fundraising matches. In peer-to-peer fundraising, companies may opt to match the amount of money an individual fundraiser or team has raised.

• In-kind donations. Companies can donate products, venues, or grand prizes that can boost your fundraising campaign.

These types of corporate giving are highly relevant to fundraising, but if your donors aren’t informed about these possibilities, then they won’t seek them out. Corporate giving can motivate supporters to give more. After all, if they realize the impact of their donation can be doubled, even tripled in some cases, then they may be more willing to increase their own donations to create the greatest possible impact.

Furthermore, corporate giving can allow you to better understand your donors. As you research corporate giving opportunities in your area and present them to your donors, you’ll inevitably learn more about their business affiliations.

By gaining insight into these business affiliations, you can personalize your fundraising strategy to your donors. After all, you may be able to leverage supporters with strong business connections.

A local business, for example, could donate a venue for your next fundraising event; a loyal donor could be the “in” you need to ask! And, at the same time, you’ll gain more insight into your donor’s working life.

For information on the top matching gifts companies your organization should be aware of, you can take a look at this 360MatchPro guide.

The bottom line: Corporate giving is a resource that can further engage your supporters and increase your donations. Knowing what kind of businesses your supporters are connected to can help you diversify your fundraising assets.

Fundraising events are the perfect opportunity to engage with your donors face-to-face and bring in additional fundraising revenue. When it comes to planning fundraising events, your event committee is probably focused on creating an amazing event experience that will retain donors. Part of that event experience will be how your organization chooses to bring giving into the spotlight.

Creating high-quality content that will wow your donors not only fosters a special event experience they’ll never forget; it also allows you to put giving at the forefront of everyone’s mind. What kind of content can you create to engage your donors during events?

Let’s take a look at some examples:

• Videos. Showing a video on a projector or screen is one of the best ways to draw your donors into your mission. An emotionally compelling video that shows the recipients of your nonprofit’s aid telling their stories can move donors to give at your event and beyond. You can premiere a high-quality video at the event, and then post it online later. Your attendees will likely be eager to share!

• Pamphlets or booklets. A short, physical pamphlet that showcases your nonprofit’s mission is a great giveaway item donors can take home to remember your organization. Like the video, this content should focus on the recipients of your nonprofit’s aid, and how supporters can help.

• Speeches. A well-delivered, relatively short speech can allow a person with a connection to your nonprofit to express how meaningful giving has been to them. This unique kind of event experience can orient your attendees toward giving. Prime prospects for your speech can be major donors, long-time volunteers, or, better yet, recipients of your aid.

The bottom line: Content isn’t just for your communications; you can use content during your fundraising events to create a unique experience your donors remember, motivating them to stay engaged and give.

Have you overlooked these top fundraising ideas? Give them a try to boost your fundraising campaigns, or learn more ideas by clicking here.

About the Author

Kerri Moore is the Director of Marketing at Booster, Created by CustomInk. She and her team help create content aimed at maximizing organizers’ fundraising potential and furthering their mission to raise awareness for the cause or passion that means the most to them.

You're reading 6 Fantastic Fundraising Ideas Your Nonprofit Has Been Overlooking, originally posted on Forward Together - Insights and ideas on best practices, trends, and issues for associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Abila on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.

The Uniform Guidance became effective for grant years beginning after December 26, 2014, and now almost all grant-funded agencies are in the throes of implementation. Uniform Guidance presents many challenges and opportunities as it tries to achieve its mission of reducing administrative burden and preventing waste, fraud, and abuse.

Uniform Guidance also tries to bring more consistency to the regulations. In the past, there was conflicting guidance, and an expense could be considered allowable or unallowable, depending on the agency.

So what’s different? Weren’t we always concerned about using public funds wisely, with a minimum of administrative cost, and always with an eye to preventing waste, fraud, and abuse? Why the need for “uniform” guidance? What opportunities do we have now that we didn’t have under the old OMB Circulars?

I propose 10 questions for you to consider about where the new Uniform Guidance may change the way you currently do things:

1. Could you live with the 10 percent de minimis rate for your cost allocation?
2. Do you need to continue the PARs (Personnel Activity Reports)?
3. Do you need to capitalize computers anymore?
4. When do you need to go out for bid?
5. Is there any reason to keep paper files anymore?
6. When is a single audit required?
7. How can you encourage a family-friendly workplace?
8. How important are strong internal controls?
9. Can you perform fundraising and development activities?
10. How can you promote “employee morale?” Rumor has it there is no employee morale in the Uniform Guidance.

For the first time we’re encouraged to enter the “electronic age” and begin to maintain records electronically. I believe this is both an opportunity and a challenge, especially since we hear about another hack every day. While we’re encouraged to decrease paper, what implication does electronic recordkeeping have on the confidentiality of our records or clients’ protected personal information? Is your electronic information secure? Do you have the proper backups, and are your backups secured? Where do all those backups go anyway?

In the past, we had to “destroy” the paper documents according to our record retention policy. Have you updated your policy to destroy not only your active electronic records, but your archived records, as well?

While it’s not specifically stated, I believe the Uniform Guidance requires us to have not only strong financial policies and procedures, but strong technology policies, as well. And, while there are many substantive changes with the Uniform Guidance, I believe the increased use of technology means we all need to become more informed about how we use technology, and educate ourselves on how to make technology work for us.

But, technology can be a double-edged sword, not only helping to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, but if not implemented correctly, being a conduit for allowing fraud. It is incumbent on us to use technology wisely, and take the advantage the Uniform Guidance gives us.

About the Author
Maile Pa’alani, CPA, is a Senior Manager at Wipfli LLP, Abila’s Partner of the Month for September 2016. Each month, Abila recognizes a top Business Partner, based on its continued support of our clients. Abila Business Partners are trusted experts authorized to resell and implement one or more Abila products.

You're reading Impact of Uniform Guidance: Do Your Accounting System and Policies Need to Change?, originally posted on Forward Together - Insights and ideas on best practices, trends, and issues for associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Abila on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.

Last week I had the privilege to travel to Freeport, Maine, to present study findings at a customer conference hosted by Abila Business Partner, Soft Trac.

This was my first visit to Maine, and everything I’d heard about its welcoming hospitality and beautiful scenery was spot-on. The conference was held just down the road from L.L. Bean’s flagship store, which I discovered is open 24/7/365!

I mention this, because at times it feels like nonprofit finance professionals worry 24/7/365 about the financial health and operations of their entire organization. And, while it was refreshing to hear Soft Trac Conference attendees are actually sleeping soundly at night, most echoed the concerns we heard from survey respondents. In particular, there were two survey topics that resonated most with this group: compliance challenges and personnel issues.

Compliance is a huge and growing concern for nonprofit finance professionals – many of whom are spending more than 10 hours a month focused on it. Not a single respondent told us they feel their time or the cost of compliance to their organization has decreased over the last three years! This is being driven by sweeping changes like the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) new overtime rule impacting salaried employees, and the recently announced changes to Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rules on financial reports for nonprofits.

New overtime rules, specifically, are creating a lot of uncertainty as nonprofits are budgeting for 2017. Several audience members at the Soft Trac conference said it could have a significant impact on their programs or services staff, while others admitted to still looking into their situation. Fortunately, in our study we heard that more than 40 percent of finance professionals turn to auditors or partners like SoftTrac to help them understand these big regulatory or compliance challenges.

People and training are other areas of concern. Our group gathered in Maine was very seasoned, with most having 10+ years of experience in nonprofit finance and accounting. So, it was interesting to the group that 13 percent of our study respondents were not hired originally for their finance roles, but instead were shifted to those roles at some point in the nonprofit career. More concerning, 57 percent of those who shifted roles were never given formal finance training. Clearly, there are opportunities to improve access and depth of training for new and even existing team members, year round.

Find out more about the challenges and trends facing nonprofit finance professionals by downloading our study.

You're reading Compliance and Personnel Big Concerns for Nonprofit Finance Leaders, originally posted on Forward Together - Insights and ideas on best practices, trends, and issues for associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Abila on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.

E-commerce Versus M-commerce

What is the difference between e-commerce and m-commerce?

E-commerce (electronic commerce) is generally considered to be any type of transaction that takes place using the internet. Many popular transactions are banking, paying bills, and shopping. These activities take place using desktop computers and laptop computers that are located in the home or office.

M-commerce (mobile commerce) is also any type of e-commerce transaction, only access to the internet is not required because these activities now take place using smartphones and tablets as telecommunication devices. And, because these activities are mobile, they can take place just about anywhere: home, office, riding in a car, walking on the beach, etc.

Mobile Optimized Websites

As the e-commerce business model continues to evolve into m-commerce helping to create the Internet of Things (IoT), optimizing the user experience with an easy-to-use mobile interface becomes key to the effort of ensuring that potential customers and users return for more.

Mobile optimization ensures that visitors who access your site from their smartphone or tablet enjoy an experience optimized for their specific device. This means that your site reformats navigation buttons, content, and images so they display correctly, no matter what device is used to view your site.

Besides being easy to read and navigate, the website must load quickly. A data hungry page that takes too much time to load is not going to attract a loyal, mobile user base.

Adoption Rate

What is driving the adoption rate of m-commerce?

Practically all top companies now have mobile apps for their customers that attract more users, make doing business much easier, and provide a better customer experience, all while saving the company money through better processes.

This includes:

• Taking mobile payments for goods and services
• Providing mobile banking services that facilitate deposits and transfers
• Allowing for filing insurance claims

A Walk in the Park

On a recent walk through a local park, a friend pointed out that almost without exception, our fellow park visitors had their heads buried in a smartphone screen. Whether sitting on a park bench or slowly making their way down the walking path, everyone was doing something with their cell phone. It did not matter if the person was alone or in a group. There seemed to be little to no talking or any kind of communication between them. All were engrossed with their personal technology.

Of course, there is always the exception. There was one group walking by that was not actively using their phones, but were simply carry them in hand – possibly for future reference?

You're reading Go Mobile or Go Home: Adding Another “M” to Commerce, originally posted on Forward Together - Insights and ideas on best practices, trends, and issues for associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Abila on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.

And, unfortunately, these jerks exist and they don’t just prey on major corporations like Target or Home Depot. Nonprofit organizations, big and small, are victims of fraud, too. In fact as part of its 2016 Global Fraud Study, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners asked respondents to provide demographic information. Of those who responded, 10.1 percent of victim organizations were nonprofits that reported a median loss of $100,000; 18.7 percent were government agencies that reported a median loss of $109,000.

The harsh reality is nonprofits often have unknown or unrealized risk factors that make them targets for fraudsters. Here are four risk factors that are likely happening within your organization right now, or could easily be lurking around the corner.

Nonprofit Fraud Risk Factors

Your team members are wearing too many hats. In addition to feeling pressure to perform on multiple fronts, the Nonprofit Finance & Accounting Study reports that nearly half of the nonprofit finance and accounting professionals identified interruptions from other departments as the number one most common challenge they face on a daily basis. Lots of conflicting responsibilities compounded by lots of interruptions can make an otherwise attentive, detail-oriented professional very unfocused and unaware.

Your nonprofit experiences high employee turnover. In the 2016 Nonprofit Finance Study, 88 percent of respondents say their organization is completely unprepared or only somewhat prepared if a key finance person was to leave. Simply put, many organizations are vulnerable to losing key finance personnel, and with turnover comes instability and possibly even inattention to risk.

You have limited or ineffective controls in place. Unfortunately, there are many nonprofits, particularly smaller organizations, that run an informal shop and don’t have prescribed controls in place. And, even if they do, they often allocate very limited resources to monitoring, enforcing, and updating them.

There are volunteers who are privy to confidential information. Because volunteers are such a vital component of nonprofit operations, they should be given appropriate training and oversight when they’re layered into your internal control systems and processes.

It’s natural to be shaking in your (very stylish) boots at this point. I am. Fortunately, you don’t have to sit back and continue to be a target of nonprofit fraud. Read The Perfect Storm: Protecting Your Nonprofit from the Devastation of Fraud to learn best practices for keeping your organization and its mission safe.

You're reading Nonprofit Fraud: 4 Risk Factors You Need to Know, originally posted on Forward Together - Insights and ideas on best practices, trends, and issues for associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Abila on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.

In her ASAE Annual Meeting session, Grow Your Membership While Raising Dues, ICF CEO and Executive Director Magdalena Mook outlined the steps her organization took to achieve what seems an out-of-reach dream for many member-based organizations: simultaneously driving member acquisition, while increasing bottom line revenue.

Get Buy-In

Address skeptics and build trust with volunteers and staff from the start. Hold one-on-one meetings and interviews to solicit ideas and input from key stakeholders and make time to listen to individual points of view. This ensures stakeholders feel heard, empowering them to internalize important, long-term strategic issues. An external, third-party consultant made this process easier.

Make Data Driven Decisions

Like many organizations busy with the daily business of membership, ICF found it had been some time since they changed membership fees … seven years to be exact! And, those membership fees had gone unchanged even while ICF added new services, benefits, and value for members. To understand what their opportunity looked like in what was a completely transformed marketplace, ICF analyzed available data to determine the size of their target market. Personas were then developed, creating a shared definition around their ideal member and their core attributes.

With personas available, ICF was then able to develop a value-based pricing approach. ICF identified the number of coaches in its target market by understanding how many coaches were coaching for a specific number of hours, and what those same populations were earning, per year, in annual coaching income. This helped establish an average hourly bill rate for its target member, $250. And, ICF realized if it was able to improve a member’s coaching business by just one hour of fees annually, the membership would be worth at least $250.

Stay Focused

Cook reported that board members sometimes had difficulty reaching consensus on hard decisions, and then sticking to the plan. The main concern was, with a targeted 25 percent dues increase (the amount necessary to help fund the organization’s desired global expansion), and by shifting the target audience to more advanced professionals and those pursuing professional accreditation, the organization would see attrition among “hobbyist” coaches and those simply interested in the practice – important groups historically.

However, ICF found this was not the case. With a strong strategic plan and implementation approach, ICF recruited more members at a higher fee and enjoyed greater revenue from its certification program.  The involvement of key stakeholders throughout the process, using data to mitigate risks and make tough choices with confidence, and the determination to see through its plans provide an accessible approach and inspirational results.

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Associations across the country are entering their crunch time as end-of-year reporting deadlines approach. And, while some members get their continuing education requirements completed early, there are always those who wait until the last minute and find themselves spending New Year’s Eve in front of the computer, instead of with friends and family. Members like these can help make for a busy and overwhelming December for you and your team.

So, what can CE providers do to help these procrastinators along? Here are six tips on how to encourage your members to get their credit submitted early and often.

1. Use your data. The systems you use to track your members’ activities, like your association management system (AMS) and learning management system (LMS), are chock full of useful data that you can use to target those customers who are putting off getting their CE. Run a report to find out who’s still in need of hours, and contact them about upcoming learning opportunities.
2. Do the work for them. Create bundles of content so your learners can register for topics of interest and get all the credit they need with one purchase. Does your state have an ethics or professionalism requirement? Put together a bundle with all the ethics hours they need for the year to make it super easy for your members to get exactly what they need to be in compliance.
3. Give them a discount. Have a fall sale during the month of October so your members are tempted to buy their programs earlier in the busy season. If customers spread their purchases out over the last few months of the year, it can help your staff to not feel so overwhelmed, come December.
4. Take advantage of hot topics. Keep an eye out for any opportunity to host an event around a hot topic. These sessions are a surefire way to draw big crowds and attract those procrastinators.
5. Repurpose that content. Many associations have different requirements about what can be considered live credit versus self study, and how many hours of each a member is required to have in a given year. This means you need to consider how you can mix up your content offering and use one program in numerous ways. One day-long, in-person event can be webcast live, offered as one large on-demand package, and broken up into smaller on-demand sessions rebroadcasted multiple times. These rebroadcasts are a great way to offer live credit without the work of creating additional programming.
6. Entice them early. It’s never too soon to start thinking about next year, so make a plan to reach out to your early birds. In January offer a discounted subscription which allows your members to pick and choose their content and create their own bundle of programming. You can place a deadline on when they need to make their selections to ensure they get their hours in during the first half of the year.

You're reading How to Nudge Your CE Procrastinators, originally posted on Forward Together - Insights and ideas on best practices, trends, and issues for associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Abila on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.

Currently, employees have to earn at least $23,360 annually to be exempt, but with the update, that minimum will be $47,476 annually. Learn more on the Department of Labor website or in the video below.

More than 40 percent of nonprofit finance pros report this change will have a “mostly negative” or “somewhat negative” impact on their organization. (For more, read the 2016 Nonprofit Finance Study.)

Whether ultimately negative or positive, communicating these changes to your nonprofit staff could potentially be tricky.

If you’re an HR leader in the sector, you know overtime rule communications will be unique to your specific nonprofit; however, there are some common conversation starters that can help you begin building your internal communication plan.

9 Overtime Rule Conversation Starters

1. Is your staff generally aware of the new rule? While you may feel like the overtime rule is all over the news, you may be more aware of it because of your role in HR. Make sure your plan starts with the basics – a thorough explanation of the new rule.
2. If you haven’t communicated about this change broadly yet, should you now? Will broad communication now help your overall goals or cause fear, uncertainty, and doubt? How you answer the next question may help you think through broad communication strategies.
3. How many employees will be impacted at your organization? Do they already know, or are communications forthcoming?
4. Are you prepared for positive and negative reactions to the news? Even if an employee will now regularly be paid overtime, there can be a negative emotional reaction as being salaried is often perceived as a career status or milestone.
5. Do the impacted employees’ supervisors know? If not, when/how will they find out? Be sure to prepare speaking points for them to use with their respective teams.
6. How will this impact peer relationships, where one team member remains exempt, while another changes to non-exempt?
7. How are your recruiters or hiring managers framing the compensation for new hires/roles that will be impacted? Are new hires being informed that their compensation structure will change down the road?
8. Can your communications and/or legal team help you with the messaging and communication?
9. What communication vehicles will you use? Email is often our go-to, but 1:1 meetings, group conference calls, and an intranet page could all be appropriate, too.

You're reading Communicating the New FLSA Overtime Rule to Your Nonprofit Employees, originally posted on Forward Together - Insights and ideas on best practices, trends, and issues for associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Abila on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.

Combine that with the significant impact a purchase like this has on a business, and it becomes crystal clear why the research phase of the LMS buying process can be bemusing and lengthy.

So where do you start?

We’ve taken a non-biased look at the “must haves” for learning management systems (LMSs), so you know exactly what features to look for to best serve your mission-critical initiatives.

LMS Must Haves

Play Nicely With Others

Just like with your AMS, your LMS needs to be able to integrate with other platforms to deliver a stellar learner experience. When talking to vendors, ensure their solution includes an open application programming interface (API) that easily allows your association to offer both single sign-on to your members, while also sharing data back to your main system of record.  

Dress for the Job You Want

First impressions are hard to forget, so make sure your LMS presents a friendly face. You’ll want customizable learning portals that mirror your organization’s branding, easy search functionality, and personalized classrooms that leave members feeling like you’re most definitely the association for them.

Be Easy to Learn From

Not all learning management systems are created equally. Look for an LMS that can do everything you need it to, from live streaming of in-person educational sessions and on-demand recordings; to quizzes, evaluations, and certificates; to mobile-friendly access.

Be Engaging

Do you make learning fun? Your LMS can enhance a member’s online learning experience if the right tools are in place. Look for features like live webinar polls, attendee chat and Q&A functionality, and the ability for presenters to screen share.

Happy Staff, Happy Members

Your LMS should be a tool your staff is excited to use. Check out the usability experience from an administrator perspective. Functionalities like report libraries, access to member profiles, and ability to offer special discounts and deliver refunds can make a huge difference in your staff’s workload.

Call Us When You Need a Friend

Any vendor you choose should treat you like a VIP. Your LMS partner should be no different. Look for LMS vendors who provide support to both your staff and your members. Ask questions about daily support, ongoing training, and how responsive the team will be to your needs. Remember, you’re a paying customer and deserve the best. Talk to your association peers and ask for references to get an unbiased gauge.

For a complete look at our LMS must haves and accompanying checklists, download our comprehensive guide here.

If you’re interested in taking a deep dive into the key features to look for in an AMS and LMS, and how to make the most out of your software, join us on Monday, September 26 at 2 p.m. ET for the interactive webinar, “Efficiency Made Easy: The Strategic AMS + LMS.”

You're reading The Savvy Association’s Guide to LMS Shopping and Success, originally posted on Forward Together - Insights and ideas on best practices, trends, and issues for associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities.. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Abila on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.