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August 2026 |
Practical things you can do this week · for nonprofits that run programs.
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This month's big one
The list you already have is worth more than the one you're trying to build
The Fundraising Effectiveness Project published its first-quarter numbers at the end of July. Dollars raised were up 4.3% on the same quarter last year. Donor counts were down 0.8%, retention sat flat at 18%, and new donor counts kept falling.
Put those together and the money grew while the crowd shrank. The growth came from people who were already giving.
So here's the August job, and it isn't glamorous. Before the year-end rush starts, get your donor records into a state where you can answer three questions in under a minute: who gave last year and hasn't yet this year, who gives every single year, and who gave once and never came back.
Most organizations can't answer those without an afternoon of spreadsheet surgery, which is exactly why the December appeal goes out to everybody at once.
Do it in August and those three lists are sitting there when you need them. Do it in December and you'll send one email to everyone and hope.
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Two minutes to check you're still tax-exempt
Miss three consecutive annual filings and your exempt status is revoked automatically. Not reviewed, not warned. The IRS says the law prohibits it from undoing a proper automatic revocation and provides no appeal process. The list of revoked organizations is public, searchable, and updated monthly. If you've had a treasurer handover or a bookkeeping gap in the last three years, look yourself up today. Far better you find it than a funder does.
Look your organization up →
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The one line missing from most donation receipts
A donor can't deduct a gift of $250 or more without a written acknowledgment from you, and it has to say whether they got anything back. If they didn't, your receipt needs to say so in words: no goods or services were provided in return for the contribution. That sentence is what most templates leave out. Leaving it out costs you nothing and costs your donor their deduction, which is worse. Open your receipt template this afternoon and look for that line.
IRS Publication 1771 →
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Sell a $100 gala seat and you owe the buyer a disclosure
If someone pays more than $75 and gets something back, a dinner, a seat, an auction lot, you must give them a written statement saying what part is actually deductible, plus a good faith estimate of what they received.
This one has teeth. The penalty is $10 per contribution, up to $5,000 per fundraising event or mailing. If your last event sold two hundred tickets and nobody sent that statement, that's the exposure. Worth knowing before you panic: the IRS says an organization may avoid the penalty if it can show the failure was due to reasonable cause. Fix the ticket confirmation before the next event either way.
The IRS rules →
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One free form gets you nonprofit postage prices
USPS charges nonprofits less for Marketing Mail, but only once you're authorized, and that takes PS Form 3624. There's no fee to apply. You'll need your formative papers, articles of incorporation, constitution or charter, plus your IRS letter of exemption. File it with your postmaster, at a Business Mail Entry Unit, or online through the Business Customer Gateway; paper takes about two weeks.
Know what comes after, though. The authorization is free, the mailing isn't: there's an annual mailing fee when you mail, and a permit imprint application fee if you pay that way.
The USPS application page →
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Candid's seal is free, and under $1M it comes with a year of their premium tool
Claiming your Candid profile and earning a Seal of Transparency costs nothing. Candid says organizations with a seal receive on average 62% more in donor contributions than those without.
Read that one carefully, though. An organization tidy enough to finish its profile is usually tidy in a lot of other ways, so some of that gap is probably the organization rather than the badge. Claim it anyway. And if your revenue or expenses are under $1 million, a Gold seal also brings a free year of Candid Premium. Above that line the seal is still free, the Premium year isn't.
How the seals work →
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Put your EIN where a donor can actually find it
To send you money from a donor-advised fund, a supporter has to give their sponsor your legal name and your EIN. Fidelity Charitable tells nonprofits outright to keep their tax ID visible on their website for exactly this reason. If yours isn't there, somebody has to stop and email you to ask, and a share of them won't. One line on your giving page. Five minutes.
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DAV's next window opens on the first business day of October
The DAV Charitable Service Trust runs four cycles a year, opening and closing on the first and last business days of January, April, July and October. If you serve veterans, October is your next shot, which leaves you September to get the paperwork straight. They want IRS tax-exempt recognition, a board list, a budget, your determination letter, audited financial statements, and a Form 990 for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 or more recent. You also have to wait twelve months between applications, so check when you last applied.
The grant cycles →
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Our own foundation is making two technology grants this year, and applications are open
The Argenta Foundation's Technology Grant is up to $5,000 in technology (software, setup, data migration and training) plus $1,000 cash toward other technology you choose. It's for US 501(c)(3)s with a budget roughly $100k to $2M that are running on spreadsheets, paper, or a handful of tools that don't talk to each other. There's no deadline, applications are reviewed as they arrive, and we're only making two this year.
It takes 15 to 20 minutes. Have your determination letter and your annual operating budget to hand and you'll finish in one sitting.
See if you qualify →
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Since you got this far: we're Argenta, and we build the all-in-one for orgs like yours: registration, waivers, deposits, rosters, volunteers, and the donors behind them. Fifteen minutes with our CEO, no hard sell.
Book a 15-minute look →
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Put together by Grace Bennett
Marketing & Communications, Argenta
You're getting Field Notes because you downloaded one of our guides, signed up for our list, tried Argenta at some point, or run the kind of programs we build software for. Everything above is free and yours to keep. Not useful? The unsubscribe link at the bottom works, and you won't hear from us again.
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