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Cloud accounting firm Xero adds Apple Pay invoice payment option

Xero, which currently boasts some 862,000 subscribers, is rolling out Apple Pay transactions in available markets through a strategic partnership with payments service Stripe. Small businesses using Apple Pay will see payments automatically logged and matched against Xero invoices in the cloud.
With a low-friction user interface, the accounting service believes Apple Pay integration will help cut down on late invoice payments, an all too common problem for small businesses. Xero estimates more than 60 percent of the 15 million invoices its customers sent out globally within the past 30 days will be paid late.

Spotlight

Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation

The Ontario First Nations'​ Technical Services Corporation (OFNTSC) was established in 1995 to provide expert technical advisory services to the First Nations of Ontario. At that time, it was the first aboriginal organization in Canada mandated to provide professional technical and advisory services to First Nations'​ communities and foster their technical self-reliance.

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Nonprofit Management

Marketing Your Nonprofit Organization in 4 Simple Steps

Article | July 20, 2022

It's not difficult to learn how to market your non-profit. Organizations can take a lot of simple steps to get in front of their target audience, inform the public, and win more people on board for their cause. These four stages will help kickstart marketing initiatives and put them on the right track to achieving their company's objectives. The non-profit is missing out on critical chances if its only marketing efforts are to organize an annual benefit event and periodically update its website. For a non-profit to expand and remain active, consistent marketing is just as important as for 'for-profit' enterprises. Without public awareness, even the greatest charitable group will be unable to accomplish anything. To properly carry out its objective, a non-profit needs strong ties with funders, volunteers, the media, and even governmental bodies. In order to retain relationships, attract regular donations, and keep an organization's activities in the public view, continual marketing initiatives are necessary. However, there are still stages that every employee can help with to establish a marketing plan, even if the non-profit doesn't have the funds for a professional marketing team. Choose the Target Market A non-profit must identify its target audience and the actions it wants them to adapt before it can take any steps to advertise its organization. Organizations can adjust their marketing initiatives to reach their target audience and motivate them to act once they are aware of who they are and where to find them. For example, they might find it helpful to look into firms that are comparable to their own to discover how they sell to the same demographic. Set Measurable Objectives Organizations can't determine whether their non-profit marketing is successful without knowing their goals. They are better equipped to assess what is working and what needs to change when they have quantifiable goals. After establishing their objectives, they should plan with their team how they'll gauge their success in achieving them. Curate Marketing Materials Marketing materials are necessary for non-profits whenever they engage with the public. These materials should be customized for their group, exhibit their achievements, offerings, and core principles, and provide information on how to get involved or donate. Build a Database Once the promotional strategies are ready, it's time to put them to use. But before they accomplish that, organizations must create a database of present and potential members. Organizations can use databases to categorize their audience into different groups depending on things like whether or not they've donated in the past, their economic level, or whether they prefer to be reached through email or physical mail. While deploying these above-mentioned steps, non-profit organizations can effectively boost their marketing capabilities that would, in return, aid in achieving their organizational goals.

Read More
Nonprofit Management

Nonprofit Cloud Spring 2020 Release: Accounting Subledger Deep Dive

Article | July 11, 2022

As a follow-up to last week’s blog on Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud Spring 2020 Release features, we’re jumping into a deep dive of the Accounting Subledger product – the connection between fundraising and finance that will help you reconcile data and have consistency and transparency across accounting and fundraising operations.

Read More
Nonprofit Management

5 Steps to Increase Community Awareness for Your Nonprofit

Article | July 15, 2022

Your community can potentially boost your nonprofit’s efforts and take your organization to new heights. But how do you get the community to fall in love with your nonprofit? This can be tough for both established and startup nonprofits alike. If your community isn’t as involved as you’d like, launch a community awareness campaign and endear yourself to your community in 5 simple steps!

Read More
Nonprofit Technology

Utilize an Email Marketing Strategy to Drive More Donations

Article | June 13, 2022

When creating your nonprofit fundraising and donations strategy, email marketing should be on the top of the list of channels to use to support your efforts. However, 70% of nonprofits do not have an email marketing strategy, despite 26% of online donors saying email marketing is what inspires them to give. Email marketing can help nonprofits reach their fundraising goals by helping expand reach, develop a loyal donor base and drive more donations. Build an Email Marketing Strategy Implementing email marketing may seem intimidating to some, but once you have an effective strategy in place, it will act as a blueprint and support all your goals moving forward. When you start building your strategy, it’s important to spend time developing a unique strategy that aligns with your mission and goals. Consider these questions: Who is your target audience? How are you collecting email addresses? What types of emails will you send? What types of content do you want to share in those emails? What will your emails look like? What is the layout? What is the design based on? How often do you plan to send emails? What platform will you use? Does it integrate with your donor database and have all the features you need to implement your strategy? Email marketing is the most effective and successful when there's a strategic plan in place. Creating a detailed strategy that answers the questions above will provide your nonprofit with the stepping stones needed to set your email marketing efforts up for success and help meet your overall fundraising goals. Send Emails Once you have a strategy and execution plan in place, you’re ready to start sending your messages to your audience. Email subscribers want to hear from you, but you need to be sure you are sending engaging messages to the right audiences. When you start sending your emails, plan to send a mix of different messages to your audience. Email marketing is an effective channel to not only fundraise but to help subscribers stay engaged and keep donor retention high. A great example would be to include advocacy emails in your plans. Advocacy emails include newsletters and impact stories. These types of emails help your subscriber feel valued as a donor as they’re seeing the direct impact of their support. As you start and continue to send emails, always track each email's performance. This helps you determine what is working and what is not working. By tracking key metrics, like click-through rates, conversation rates and donations per email, you will be able to continuously improve your strategy and the emails you are sending. Follow Best Practices As you begin to execute your email strategy, there are a few key best practices I recommend following to help increase engagement, donations, and overall performance of your emails. Personalize the email for your subscribers. Personalized emails can generate donations up to six times more compared to a generalized email. Make sure your emails are well-designed with compelling imagery that helps the donor visualize your mission and the impact of their donations. Provide clear calls to action in each email you send and always include a “Donate” button in all your communications. Include social sharing buttons and links to your social channels in all your email communications. Emails with social sharing buttons increase click-through rates by as much as 158% and help expand your reach by allowing donors to recommend and share your nonprofit with their network. Create an email cadence so you are regularly communicating with your audience throughout the year. For every 1,000 fundraising emails delivered, nonprofits raised $78, so it is in your best interest to continuously send messages to your subscribers. Start by sending emails monthly and then experiment with increasing the frequency of emails per month and see what works best for your nonprofit. Utilizing email marketing is key to having a successful fundraising strategy for your nonprofit. By building a well-thought-out strategy and implementing it, you will be able to engage, retain and convert subscribers into a loyal donor base.

Read More
Nonprofit Management

What Does the Health of Your Nonprofit Website Mean and How Can You Improve It?

Article | July 20, 2022

It's not difficult to learn how to market your non-profit. Organizations can take a lot of simple steps to get in front of their target audience, inform the public, and win more people on board for their cause. These four stages will help kickstart marketing initiatives and put them on the right track to achieving their company's objectives. The non-profit is missing out on critical chances if its only marketing efforts are to organize an annual benefit event and periodically update its website. For a non-profit to expand and remain active, consistent marketing is just as important as for 'for-profit' enterprises. Without public awareness, even the greatest charitable group will be unable to accomplish anything. To properly carry out its objective, a non-profit needs strong ties with funders, volunteers, the media, and even governmental bodies. In order to retain relationships, attract regular donations, and keep an organization's activities in the public view, continual marketing initiatives are necessary. However, there are still stages that every employee can help with to establish a marketing plan, even if the non-profit doesn't have the funds for a professional marketing team. Choose the Target Market A non-profit must identify its target audience and the actions it wants them to adapt before it can take any steps to advertise its organization. Organizations can adjust their marketing initiatives to reach their target audience and motivate them to act once they are aware of who they are and where to find them. For example, they might find it helpful to look into firms that are comparable to their own to discover how they sell to the same demographic. Set Measurable Objectives Organizations can't determine whether their non-profit marketing is successful without knowing their goals. They are better equipped to assess what is working and what needs to change when they have quantifiable goals. After establishing their objectives, they should plan with their team how they'll gauge their success in achieving them. Curate Marketing Materials Marketing materials are necessary for non-profits whenever they engage with the public. These materials should be customized for their group, exhibit their achievements, offerings, and core principles, and provide information on how to get involved or donate. Build a Database Once the promotional strategies are ready, it's time to put them to use. But before they accomplish that, organizations must create a database of present and potential members. Organizations can use databases to categorize their audience into different groups depending on things like whether or not they've donated in the past, their economic level, or whether they prefer to be reached through email or physical mail. While deploying these above-mentioned steps, non-profit organizations can effectively boost their marketing capabilities that would, in return, aid in achieving their organizational goals.

Read More
Nonprofit Management

Top 5 Trends for Non-Profits in 2022

Article | July 11, 2022

As a follow-up to last week’s blog on Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud Spring 2020 Release features, we’re jumping into a deep dive of the Accounting Subledger product – the connection between fundraising and finance that will help you reconcile data and have consistency and transparency across accounting and fundraising operations.

Read More
Nonprofit Management

The Advocacy versus the Activist Functions of Non-profits

Article | July 15, 2022

Your community can potentially boost your nonprofit’s efforts and take your organization to new heights. But how do you get the community to fall in love with your nonprofit? This can be tough for both established and startup nonprofits alike. If your community isn’t as involved as you’d like, launch a community awareness campaign and endear yourself to your community in 5 simple steps!

Read More
Nonprofit Technology

Utilize an Email Marketing Strategy to Drive More Donations

Article | June 13, 2022

When creating your nonprofit fundraising and donations strategy, email marketing should be on the top of the list of channels to use to support your efforts. However, 70% of nonprofits do not have an email marketing strategy, despite 26% of online donors saying email marketing is what inspires them to give. Email marketing can help nonprofits reach their fundraising goals by helping expand reach, develop a loyal donor base and drive more donations. Build an Email Marketing Strategy Implementing email marketing may seem intimidating to some, but once you have an effective strategy in place, it will act as a blueprint and support all your goals moving forward. When you start building your strategy, it’s important to spend time developing a unique strategy that aligns with your mission and goals. Consider these questions: Who is your target audience? How are you collecting email addresses? What types of emails will you send? What types of content do you want to share in those emails? What will your emails look like? What is the layout? What is the design based on? How often do you plan to send emails? What platform will you use? Does it integrate with your donor database and have all the features you need to implement your strategy? Email marketing is the most effective and successful when there's a strategic plan in place. Creating a detailed strategy that answers the questions above will provide your nonprofit with the stepping stones needed to set your email marketing efforts up for success and help meet your overall fundraising goals. Send Emails Once you have a strategy and execution plan in place, you’re ready to start sending your messages to your audience. Email subscribers want to hear from you, but you need to be sure you are sending engaging messages to the right audiences. When you start sending your emails, plan to send a mix of different messages to your audience. Email marketing is an effective channel to not only fundraise but to help subscribers stay engaged and keep donor retention high. A great example would be to include advocacy emails in your plans. Advocacy emails include newsletters and impact stories. These types of emails help your subscriber feel valued as a donor as they’re seeing the direct impact of their support. As you start and continue to send emails, always track each email's performance. This helps you determine what is working and what is not working. By tracking key metrics, like click-through rates, conversation rates and donations per email, you will be able to continuously improve your strategy and the emails you are sending. Follow Best Practices As you begin to execute your email strategy, there are a few key best practices I recommend following to help increase engagement, donations, and overall performance of your emails. Personalize the email for your subscribers. Personalized emails can generate donations up to six times more compared to a generalized email. Make sure your emails are well-designed with compelling imagery that helps the donor visualize your mission and the impact of their donations. Provide clear calls to action in each email you send and always include a “Donate” button in all your communications. Include social sharing buttons and links to your social channels in all your email communications. Emails with social sharing buttons increase click-through rates by as much as 158% and help expand your reach by allowing donors to recommend and share your nonprofit with their network. Create an email cadence so you are regularly communicating with your audience throughout the year. For every 1,000 fundraising emails delivered, nonprofits raised $78, so it is in your best interest to continuously send messages to your subscribers. Start by sending emails monthly and then experiment with increasing the frequency of emails per month and see what works best for your nonprofit. Utilizing email marketing is key to having a successful fundraising strategy for your nonprofit. By building a well-thought-out strategy and implementing it, you will be able to engage, retain and convert subscribers into a loyal donor base.

Read More
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Spotlight

Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation

The Ontario First Nations'​ Technical Services Corporation (OFNTSC) was established in 1995 to provide expert technical advisory services to the First Nations of Ontario. At that time, it was the first aboriginal organization in Canada mandated to provide professional technical and advisory services to First Nations'​ communities and foster their technical self-reliance.

Related News

Nonprofit Technology

Aplos Joins ASG to Scale Up Industry-leading Nonprofit Software Platform

ASG | February 24, 2022

ASG, a portfolio company of Alpine Investors that buys and builds vertical SaaS companies, announced that it has acquired Aplos, an industry-leading platform for nonprofits of all kinds, including faith-based organizations, K-12 schools, arts and cultural associations and more. Aplos provides a full suite of SaaS and FinTech tools, including fund accounting, financial reporting, donation tracking and fundraising tools, and people management. Through one unified solution for nonprofit management, Aplos empowers nonprofits to advance their missions and serve their communities. Our goal from day one has always been to meet the software needs of the full nonprofit sector, but to get there we needed to find the right financial partner. I am excited to have found a partner in ASG that believes in the value of serving nonprofits as strongly as I do. This new partnership equips Aplos to ramp up our team, fuel our product development, and invest in the future of this incredible community.” Tim Goetz, Aplos founder Aplos was founded in 2009 in Fresno, Calif. after Goetz couldn’t find a simple, affordable fund accounting software for his church, where he served as executive pastor. Since then, Aplos has grown to a team of over 65 employees who are deeply committed to making an impact with nonprofit organizations. From its initial launch as a web-based fund accounting software, Aplos now includes solutions for church management, donor management, event registration, websites, and fundraising. Today, over 10,000 organizations utilize Aplos to engage over 5 million donors and supporters around the world. Aplos marks the 44th acquisition for ASG and its first in the nonprofit software industry. Aplos will also welcome Anush Vinod as CEO, who was most recently an executive at a high-growth e-commerce business and a member of Alpine Investor’s CEO Program. “Aplos is an exceptional platform, built by innovators who care deeply about serving nonprofits and churches,” said Vinod. “The team’s passion to innovate for their customer is a worthy and inspiring mission. Nowhere is this mission more apparent than in the products, which carry the spirit of this relentless commitment to delivering great technology. For these reasons – and many more – I’m excited to lead Aplos in its next phase of growth.” About Aplos Aplos is a cloud-based system designed specially to serve the needs of nonprofit and church organizations of all sizes. The Aplos all-in-one platform takes the stress out of finances and creating reports, streamline administrative tasks, and make giving faster and more effective. Users can fundraise with the use of online donation tools, custom communication, donor database reports and event registration. Aplos enables organizations to manage all of their financial, donation and donor information in one place. About ASG ASG, backed by Alpine Investors, is a unique and fast-growing software business that buys and builds market-leading vertical SaaS companies. ASG believes deeply in the power of people and data to grow great organizations, and that sharing knowledge, expertise, and resources across its community of businesses drives exponential growth. Founders of leading SaaS companies continue to trust ASG to grow their businesses and build even stronger legacies for the future. About Alpine Investors Alpine Investors is a people-driven private equity firm that is committed to building enduring companies by working with, learning from, and developing exceptional people. Alpine specializes in investments in middle-market companies in the software and services industries. Its PeopleFirst strategy includes a CEO-in-Residence program which allows Alpine to bring proven leadership to situations where additional or new management is needed post-transaction. Alpine is currently investing out of its $2.25 billion eighth fund.

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BDO updates guide to nonprofit financial statements

BDO USA, LLP | March 13, 2017

BDO USA has released the third edition of its guide to nonprofit financial reporting, updated to include the recent changes by the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

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Novogradac & Company LLP Promotes Seven to Partner

Novogradac & Company LLP | January 02, 2017

Novogradac & Company LLP, a national accounting and consulting firm, welcomes Nat Eng, Chris Jones, Andrea Killeen and Angie Taylor of the San Francisco office; Rachel Denton of the Kansas City, Mo., office; Bryan Hung of the Long Beach, Calif., office; and Amanda Read of the Cleveland office to the partnership. The firm, which specializes in affordable housing, community development, historic preservation and renewable energy tax credits and other areas, has 56 partners in 25 offices nationwide “I am excited to announce that Amanda, Andrea, Angie, Bryan, Chris, Nat and Rachel have been promoted to partner,” said Michael Novogradac, the firm’s managing partner. “Their dedication to the firm and expertise in their respective fields has helped Novogradac & Company continue to be a leader in the tax credit, accounting and valuation industries, while continuing to find new ways to better serve our clients.”

Read More

Nonprofit Technology

Aplos Joins ASG to Scale Up Industry-leading Nonprofit Software Platform

ASG | February 24, 2022

ASG, a portfolio company of Alpine Investors that buys and builds vertical SaaS companies, announced that it has acquired Aplos, an industry-leading platform for nonprofits of all kinds, including faith-based organizations, K-12 schools, arts and cultural associations and more. Aplos provides a full suite of SaaS and FinTech tools, including fund accounting, financial reporting, donation tracking and fundraising tools, and people management. Through one unified solution for nonprofit management, Aplos empowers nonprofits to advance their missions and serve their communities. Our goal from day one has always been to meet the software needs of the full nonprofit sector, but to get there we needed to find the right financial partner. I am excited to have found a partner in ASG that believes in the value of serving nonprofits as strongly as I do. This new partnership equips Aplos to ramp up our team, fuel our product development, and invest in the future of this incredible community.” Tim Goetz, Aplos founder Aplos was founded in 2009 in Fresno, Calif. after Goetz couldn’t find a simple, affordable fund accounting software for his church, where he served as executive pastor. Since then, Aplos has grown to a team of over 65 employees who are deeply committed to making an impact with nonprofit organizations. From its initial launch as a web-based fund accounting software, Aplos now includes solutions for church management, donor management, event registration, websites, and fundraising. Today, over 10,000 organizations utilize Aplos to engage over 5 million donors and supporters around the world. Aplos marks the 44th acquisition for ASG and its first in the nonprofit software industry. Aplos will also welcome Anush Vinod as CEO, who was most recently an executive at a high-growth e-commerce business and a member of Alpine Investor’s CEO Program. “Aplos is an exceptional platform, built by innovators who care deeply about serving nonprofits and churches,” said Vinod. “The team’s passion to innovate for their customer is a worthy and inspiring mission. Nowhere is this mission more apparent than in the products, which carry the spirit of this relentless commitment to delivering great technology. For these reasons – and many more – I’m excited to lead Aplos in its next phase of growth.” About Aplos Aplos is a cloud-based system designed specially to serve the needs of nonprofit and church organizations of all sizes. The Aplos all-in-one platform takes the stress out of finances and creating reports, streamline administrative tasks, and make giving faster and more effective. Users can fundraise with the use of online donation tools, custom communication, donor database reports and event registration. Aplos enables organizations to manage all of their financial, donation and donor information in one place. About ASG ASG, backed by Alpine Investors, is a unique and fast-growing software business that buys and builds market-leading vertical SaaS companies. ASG believes deeply in the power of people and data to grow great organizations, and that sharing knowledge, expertise, and resources across its community of businesses drives exponential growth. Founders of leading SaaS companies continue to trust ASG to grow their businesses and build even stronger legacies for the future. About Alpine Investors Alpine Investors is a people-driven private equity firm that is committed to building enduring companies by working with, learning from, and developing exceptional people. Alpine specializes in investments in middle-market companies in the software and services industries. Its PeopleFirst strategy includes a CEO-in-Residence program which allows Alpine to bring proven leadership to situations where additional or new management is needed post-transaction. Alpine is currently investing out of its $2.25 billion eighth fund.

Read More

BDO updates guide to nonprofit financial statements

BDO USA, LLP | March 13, 2017

BDO USA has released the third edition of its guide to nonprofit financial reporting, updated to include the recent changes by the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

Read More

Novogradac & Company LLP Promotes Seven to Partner

Novogradac & Company LLP | January 02, 2017

Novogradac & Company LLP, a national accounting and consulting firm, welcomes Nat Eng, Chris Jones, Andrea Killeen and Angie Taylor of the San Francisco office; Rachel Denton of the Kansas City, Mo., office; Bryan Hung of the Long Beach, Calif., office; and Amanda Read of the Cleveland office to the partnership. The firm, which specializes in affordable housing, community development, historic preservation and renewable energy tax credits and other areas, has 56 partners in 25 offices nationwide “I am excited to announce that Amanda, Andrea, Angie, Bryan, Chris, Nat and Rachel have been promoted to partner,” said Michael Novogradac, the firm’s managing partner. “Their dedication to the firm and expertise in their respective fields has helped Novogradac & Company continue to be a leader in the tax credit, accounting and valuation industries, while continuing to find new ways to better serve our clients.”

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