Development
Donor strategy, grant agreements, and solicitation rules, where the fundraising question and the compliance question are usually the same question.
The part nobody prepared you for.
Fundraising is where marketing, law, and finance collide. A message can unintentionally restrict a gift. A grant agreement can create obligations your board should have seen first. Raising money well means understanding both the relationship and the paperwork.
- ✦Does this grant agreement commit us to something we cannot deliver?
- ✦Did our appeal language accidentally restrict these funds?
- ✦Which states require registration before we solicit there?
- ✦How do we build a donor pipeline with no development staff?
Two ways in, depending on what you need.
Ask about your own documents
ēosIQ covers this pillar with guidance grounded in nonprofit law rather than the open web, and it reads your own bylaws, filings, and agreements. The free tier includes the Legal pillar. A subscription covers all six.
Explore ēosIQAsk people who have been there
The Development forum is one of seven in Akademia, open to subscribers and moderated for verified nonprofit professionals. It is where the questions above get answered by people who have already faced them.
Explore AkademiaThere is a course for this pillar.
Fundraising Without Fear
14 lessons. 1 hour and 18 minutes of content, 16 downloadable resources.
See the CourseNothing in this work stays in one pillar.
Legal
IRS filings, multi-state registration, and employment questions, in a field where the rules were written for organizations very different from yours.
Governance
Board duties, bylaws, quorum, and conflicts of interest, which is to say the machinery that determines whether decisions hold up.
Finance
Form 990, budgets, restricted funds, and audit readiness, for leaders who are accountable for numbers nobody taught them to read.
People & Culture
HR compliance, staff development, and team health, in organizations where one person often holds every one of those responsibilities.
Program & Systems
Program design, operations, and the technology behind them, including the AI tools already in use across your organization.