Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice. We welcome your comments and feedback.

Nonprofit organizations are often dependent on volunteers, and among adults 65 and older volunteering rates have increased from 14.3% in 1974 to 23.5% in 2005. Some of this increase can be attributed to earlier retirement, leading senior citizens to be more active. For nonprofits, understanding the dynamics of senior volunteerism can help organizations utilize seniors in a way that furthers their mission while offering a positive volunteering experience.

Several challenges can be unique to senior volunteers. First, some volunteers may have physical limitations such as health, sight, or hearing problems. Some seniors may be unfamiliar with or resistant to newer technology. An additional problem can occur with volunteers who “age in place,” which means they joined the organization at a younger age and have lost some abilities. When the organization feels loyal to the volunteer it can be difficult to confront this issue. All of these concerns should be taken into account.

However, the benefits senior volunteers bring to an organization are also important to consider. Seniors can often apply skills from their former jobs to a nonprofit. Their…

The most frequent question posed on the ASU Lodestar Center's "Ask the Nonprofit Specialists" service is about how to start a nonprofit organization. Recent research by Civic Ventures suggests that there is strong interest and intention among "boomers" (individuals in their 40s, 50s, and 60s) to create jobs for themselves and others as entrepreneurs, making a positive social impact.

More than 12 million aspiring entrepreneurs want to be "encore entrepreneurs," by starting a nonprofit or socially oriented business. There is also a growing trend of new nonprofits run by college students. According to Crain's New York Business, "The flood of 'postmillennials' creating their own nonprofits stems from two trends, experts say: a generational desire to do something meaningful and the quest for individualism."

"In a sea of bad economic news, it's heartening that millions of people with experience want to take matters in their own hands and launch their own ventures to meet social needs in their communities," said Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures.

Mark Rosenman, in a blog post titled, "Calling All Boomers: Don't Start More Nonprofits," disagrees with the idea of…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice. We welcome your comments and feedback.

You serve on a nonprofit board of directors. Or, you are a member of management for a nonprofit organization. You are expected to understand the organization's finances. And your role (board or staff) determines how you contribute to the overall security of the nonprofit with which you are affiliated.

When those who are responsible for an organization's overall fiscal management responded to a study by The Moody Foundation, it was found that nonprofits need to "fortify their financial skills to better forecast future needs, navigate economic instability, and manage risk."1 This study, Financial Literacy and Knowledge in the Nonprofit Sector (PDF), "engaged a random sample of primarily human service nonprofits, as well as health, civic, environmental, arts, and education nonprofits."2 Again, the study surveyed nonprofit financial managers such as CEOs and CFOs.

The…

When starting out with social media as a nonprofit, it can be a tricky and confusing process. It’s not like the for-profit sector where you have a goal to gain customers through deals and offering products/services. It’s about your cause.

You now have supporters, donors, partners, and those directly affiliated with your organization to think about and cater to. Besides a website, the musts of nonprofit social media include a Facebook page and Twitter account. They provide an easy way for others to show their affiliation and support while being able to directly engage with the nonprofit. Your cause and organizational updates are able to become clearer and more regular through your messaging. I personally began employment at my first nonprofit, ICAN, a year ago, and this is how I’ve been able to make my social media mark on the brand.

The Facebook and Twitter pages had already been set up, but they were scarcely used. I re-evaluated the mission and audience of the organization and found a healthy mix.  As I began to post on a daily basis, I started including real-time photos and posts about events, donation thank you’s, and basic organization updates. Eventually, I began adding in “behind the scenes” posts about staff to make our brand include more than just the faces of those we serve, but also those who were providing service. Within a year, both the Facebook and Twitter followers more than doubled, and engagement increased almost…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

In our professional and personal lives, we are all asked to take a dozen or more surveys every year. At work, I receive email surveys on everything from how we use social media to how we like the services of our vendors. At home, I get opinion questionnaires from organizations ranging from political parties to movie ticket vendors.

Being the recipient of so many surveys, I pick and choose which I respond to. No doubt you do as well. As the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) embarks on its fourth annual nonprofit State of the Sector Survey, I hope you will choose to spend a few minutes of your valuable and busy work time responding to ours. Here’s why.

Nonprofits are our social safety net, particularly now, during the hard times our country continues to experience. They help and enrich people and communities, some of whom face dire health, housing, or food access circumstances. Yet many of the nonprofits that Arizonians rely on for a just and vibrant society are themselves in dire circumstances. Revenue is down, particularly from government funders, while service demand is up (77% saw a rise in service demand last year, on top of increases in service demand from previous years).

As we’ve seen with the…