Capital campaigns are an opportunity to scale your nonprofit, whether you’re raising funds to launch a new program, open a new location, construct a building, or complete another major project. However, growing too fast can threaten your stability. For fundraising professionals, this often manifests in fears that focus on a capital campaign will divert donations away from their annual fund.

Fortunately, nonprofits can maintain or even grow their annual funds while hosting a capital campaign. Doing so requires the right strategies, technology, and potentially even professional consulting services.

In this guide, we’ll explain how a capital campaign can impact your annual fund, and what your nonprofit can do to ensure that impact is positive.

For many nonprofits, one of the biggest fundraising challenges isn’t donor generosity, it’s donor confusion.

Donors want to help. They want to do the right thing. But when tax laws change, even well-intentioned supporters can feel unsure about how (or whether) their giving still “counts” when tax time rolls around.

That’s why the addition of the above-the-line charitable deduction for non-itemizers in 2026 is something every nonprofit leader and fundraiser should understand and communicate clearly to donors this year.

This change may not solve every fundraising challenge, but it could remove a common mental barrier for millions of donors who don’t itemize their taxes. And considering the IRS reports that 87% of tax filers take the standard deduction, chances are this change may affect a lot of your donor base.

Let’s break down what this change means, why it matters to your organization, and how to talk about it without sounding like a tax advisor.

Make-A-Will Month is an annual initiative that happens every August. It is designed to raise awareness about the importance of creating a will and planning for the future. It’s a time when individuals are encouraged to take stock of their assets, reflect on their legacy, and ensure that their final wishes are legally documented.

For nonprofits, Make-A-Will Month presents a unique opportunity to engage with supporters in meaningful ways, secure long-term funding, and build stronger, more lasting relationships. By actively participating in a Make-A-Will Month campaign, your organization can take a significant step toward ensuring its sustainability and continued success.

Want help getting ready for Make-A-Will Month? Canopy has a free Make-A-Will Month Toolkit you can download to get started and maximize the impact of your campaign.

For nonprofit leaders, CFOs, and finance committees, balancing liquidity with donor intent can be a constant challenge. Restricted funds and endowments often represent some of an organization’s most important and most sensitive assets.

Responsibly managing restricted funds and endowments secures donor trust and helps you avoid regulatory scrutiny. Errors in tracking, commingling, or investing these dollars inappropriately, on the other hand, can trigger compliance issues under ASC 958 or the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA), as well as reputational damage that can take years to repair.

Proper stewardship requires clear policies, rigorous tracking, and financial infrastructure designed for restricted fund management. Below, you’ll find some of the essential dos and don’ts of managing restricted funds and endowments effectively.

Endowment spending decisions are rarely about the number alone. Board members and nonprofit leaders are responsible for supporting today’s programs while safeguarding resources for the future, which means multiple factors must be considered when setting a withdrawal rate. 

For many nonprofits, the question isn’t if professional investment guidance will be helpful; it’s when. 

Early on, managing reserves and small investment accounts internally may feel manageable. But as assets grow, donor generosity increases, and boards ask more thoughtful questions, the responsibility around stewardship naturally becomes more complex. 

So how do you know when it’s time to partner with an investment advisor? 

This post walks through the common signs nonprofits experience as they grow, along with what an advisor can help with and how to choose the right one.  

Major donors often provide the bulk of funding for capital campaigns. This means that ahead of your next capital campaign, identifying prospective major donors is essential. 

In fact, for many nonprofits, capital campaign preparations focus almost entirely on ensuring the organization has enough major giving candidates and the organizational capacity to pursue them. To help your nonprofit get ready for its next capital campaign, this guide will explore core strategies for identifying promising potential major donors.  

As a nonprofit leader, you have probably heard of the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA). But are you familiar with what it includes and who needs to follow it? Don’t let your organization pay the penalty of being noncompliant with this important act. This post covers the key components of the law and its goals, who it applies to, an overview of steps organizations should take to ensure compliance with the act, and potential penalties for noncompliance.

53.37% of nonprofits agree that it’s vital to acquire multiple major gifts. Yet, 58.87% of organizations lack a major gift strategy, and 75.32% attribute this to a lack of investment on their part. 

This staggering contradiction underscores the need to emphasize major gift fundraising. While technology-driven engagement tactics and personalized outreach can grab prospects’ attention, achieving success with major donors is about more than simply asking for funds. It’s about strategically positioning your organization as a trustworthy and effective partner by clearly demonstrating the measurable return on investment (ROI) their gifts generate. 

Impact data turns your major gift fundraising appeals from transactional requests into proposals for strategic, long-term partnerships. With an effective impact reporting process in place, your nonprofit can establish deeper trust with donors and cultivate stronger relationships that lead to major gifts. 

Let’s unpack the role of impact reporting in cultivating major gifts. 

It’s no secret that planned gifts are essential for your nonprofit’s long-term financial health. However, the challenge comes when it’s time to create a clear communication strategy that encourages donors to make a long-term commitment. So, where do you begin? 

A successful planned giving program is built on trust, education, and open communication. From creating a central resource for donors to celebrating their gifts in a meaningful way, this guide will provide everything you need to inspire planned (also called legacy) gifts.