Every scenario follows the same shape: the situation, who's involved, the walkthrough, what you end up with, and the mistake to watch out for. Open the ones that match your week.
How to use this page. Skim the card titles, open the one that just happened to you, and follow the numbered steps. Each step links the app or automation that does the work. See pricing for plan details.
Money In
Gifts, grants, events, and the giving season. The thread that runs through all six: log it once in Donor Management, and let the acknowledgments, statements, and board reports generate from that record.
1A donor designates their gift: “this is for the building fund”›
The situation
A donor hands you a check with a note: “for the building fund only.” That sentence just turned a general gift into a donor-restricted gift, and the law takes the restriction seriously.
Who's involved
Whoever logs gifts, the treasurer, and the board (which needs to see restricted balances separately).
The walkthrough
- Record the gift with its restriction in Donor Management: tag the gift record with the restricted purpose (“building fund”) so it never blends into general giving.
- Send the acknowledgment using the restricted-gift acknowledgment automation in Donor Management's AI Automations tab. It includes the IRS-required language and restates the restriction, which protects both of you.
- Track the restricted balance for the board. Keep restricted gifts visible as their own line so the treasurer's report shows what's spoken for. The board should never see one big number that secretly includes restricted money.
- Release the restriction when you spend per purpose. When the building-fund money actually pays building-fund expenses, note the release in the gift's record so your books and your donor's intent stay matched.
What you end up with
Produced: a gift record tagged with the restriction, an acknowledgment letter restating the donor's purpose, a restricted-balance line in the treasurer's report, and a release note when the money is spent as intended.
⚠ Watch out: treating restricted money as general funds. Spending the building fund on payroll, even temporarily, even with good intentions, is the classic nonprofit trust breach. If the purpose becomes impossible, go back to the donor (or, in some cases, a court) before redirecting a dollar.
2You're awarded a grant›
The situation
The email you've been refreshing for finally arrived: you got the grant. The celebration is real, and so is the paperwork that just attached itself to your calendar.
Who's involved
Whoever wrote the grant, the executive director, the treasurer, and whoever owns the compliance calendar.
The walkthrough
- Read the grant agreement, all of it. Note every reporting requirement, spending restriction, and deadline before you sign or spend.
- Calendar every reporting deadline in the Compliance Tracker the same day. Interim report, final report, financial reconciliation. Each one gets its own dated entry.
- If the grant is restricted (most are), track it as a restricted gift in Donor Management, exactly like scenario 1.
- Set up the reporting workflow in the Grant Management app: its AI Automations tab drafts grant reports from the proposal and outcomes you've already entered, so report week isn't a blank page.
- Thank the funder now, not at report time. A prompt, warm acknowledgment is the cheapest renewal strategy that exists.
What you end up with
Produced: a dated deadline entry for every report, a restricted-gift record, a reporting workflow ready to draft, and a thank-you in the funder's inbox while the award is still warm.
⚠ Watch out: the deadline 11 months from now that nobody wrote down. Final reports come due long after the excitement fades, and a missed report quietly disqualifies you from the next round. If it isn't in the Compliance Tracker, it doesn't exist.
3Someone donates stock or in-kind goods›
The situation
A supporter wants to give you 50 shares of stock, or a local business donates a riding mower. Wonderful, but the receipt rules are different from cash, and getting them wrong creates a tax problem for your donor.
Who's involved
The donor, whoever writes acknowledgments, and the treasurer.
The walkthrough
- Accept and document the gift. For stock, note the security and share count and the date received; for goods, describe the item in plain detail.
- Send the acknowledgment with the right wording from Donor Management: describe the gift (“50 shares of XYZ Corp” / “one riding mower”) but never state a dollar value on the receipt. The donor establishes the value for their own deduction: valuation is their job, and Form 8283 (for larger non-cash gifts) is their form, not yours. You may be asked to sign the donee acknowledgment section of their 8283; that signature confirms receipt, not value.
- Record it in Donor Management as a non-cash gift, with the description and date, so year-end statements describe it correctly too.
- Know when Form 8282 appears. If you sell, exchange, or dispose of donated property worth over $5,000 within three years of receiving it, your organization generally must file Form 8282 with the IRS and send a copy to the donor. Put a note on the gift record the day it arrives.
What you end up with
Produced: a description-only acknowledgment letter, a non-cash gift record, and a flag on the record for potential Form 8282 obligations if you sell within three years.
⚖ This one carries real tax weight for your donor: for appraisals, large stock gifts, or anything unusual, point the donor to their tax advisor and run your own wording past a nonprofit-savvy CPA.
⚠ Watch out: putting a dollar value on an in-kind receipt. A well-meaning “thank you for your $2,000 mower” letter can invalidate the donor's deduction and put your organization in the middle of their audit. Describe; never appraise.
4You're running a fundraising event›
The situation
The gala, the fun run, the raffle at the pancake breakfast: the committee is excited, tickets are nearly designed, and three legal questions are hiding in the centerpieces.
Who's involved
The event committee, the treasurer, whoever writes acknowledgments, and the board (which gets the results).
The walkthrough
- Check permits and gaming laws first. Raffles, bingo, and casino nights are regulated gaming in most states, with licenses, registration, and sometimes prize caps. Check your state's rules before selling a single ticket: the Fundraising & Development app's event planning materials walk you through the questions to ask.
- Sort sponsor payments from charitable gifts. A sponsorship that buys advertising is different from a donation. And when a ticket buyer gets dinner, the quid pro quo rule applies: for payments over $75 where the donor receives something, the receipt must state what part is deductible (payment minus the value of the dinner).
- Run the post-event acknowledgment batch in Donor Management within days, with the right deductibility language baked in by the acknowledgment automation.
- Report results to the board through the committee's “Report to the Board” in Committees: gross, expenses, net, and what you'd change next year.
What you end up with
Produced: permits and licenses on file before sales, receipts with correct quid pro quo language, a complete acknowledgment run, and a one-page results report in the board packet.
⚠ Watch out: the raffle that was technically an unlicensed lottery. Plenty of friendly community raffles violate state gaming law without anyone meaning to, and the penalty conversation is much worse than the ten-minute license check would have been.
5Year-end giving season›
The situation
It's October, and a third of the year's giving is about to arrive in the next ninety days. The organizations that win year-end aren't the ones with the cleverest appeal: they're the ones whose acknowledgment machine doesn't jam.
Who's involved
The development lead, whoever sends acknowledgments, the marketing volunteer, and every donor you have.
The walkthrough
- November: launch the appeal. Draft it with the campaign tools in Fundraising & Development and get it in front of people with the Marketing app's email and social drafts: one story, one ask, every channel.
- December: acknowledgment discipline as gifts spike. Log every gift in Donor Management the week it arrives and run the acknowledgment automation in batches. A gift acknowledged in 48 hours feels seen; the same gift acknowledged in March feels processed.
- January: run year-end statements. Donor Management compiles every donor's annual giving into one statement run: the document your donors need before they file.
- February: donor-list hygiene. Merge duplicates, fix addresses that bounced, update segments, and flag lapsed donors for spring outreach while the data is fresh.
What you end up with
Produced: a multi-channel appeal, a complete acknowledgment record for the season, year-end statements for every donor in January, and a clean list going into the new year.
⚠ Watch out: acknowledgments sent in March. Donors need a written acknowledgment in hand before they claim gifts of $250 or more, and many file in February. Late letters create real tax friction for the people who just funded your year.
6The life of your donor list (lifecycle)›
The situation
Your donor list isn't a spreadsheet; it's a population that moves through stages. Each stage has one right move, and the loop, not any single appeal, is what funds you year after year.
Who's involved
The development lead, whoever owns Donor Management, and (for the data-hygiene stage) whoever owns your privacy practices.
The walkthrough
- Acquisition: events, the website, word of mouth. Every new name goes into Donor Management the week you meet them.
- First gift + acknowledgment: the first acknowledgment letter is the most important one a donor ever gets. The automation makes it fast; you make it warm.
- Segmentation: tag donors by giving level, interest, and recency so the next appeal speaks to the right people in the right voice.
- Stewardship → second gift: the second gift is the real conversion. Updates, impact stories, and an invitation, not just another ask.
- Lapsed re-engagement: donors who skipped a year get a “we miss you” touch, not a guilt trip. Segments make them easy to find.
- Archival & data hygiene: retire dead records, honor opt-outs, and review what donor data you actually need to keep: the privacy assessment in the Technology app walks you through it.
What you end up with
Produced: a segmented, current donor list; an acknowledgment trail for every gift; a lapsed-donor segment ready for win-back; and a documented data-hygiene habit your privacy assessment can point to.
⚠ Watch out: a list that only ever grows. Ten years of unsegmented names with no hygiene pass means your appeals go to the moved, the deceased, and the opted-out, and your open rates (and reputation) pay for it.
Money Out
Paying vendors, reimbursing people, and the day a volunteer becomes an employee. The theme: a second pair of eyes, receipts, and a record that survives seven years.
7An invoice arrives from your webmaster (or anyone else)›
The situation
An invoice lands in the inbox: from your webmaster, a publisher, the porta-potty company. It looks routine. Routine is exactly how money leaks out of nonprofits.
Who's involved
Whoever received the invoice, whoever approves spending, and the treasurer.
The walkthrough
Verifyagainst the agreement: is this a real vendor, real work, agreed price?
Approveper your threshold, with a second pair of eyes
Pay & recordthrough your normal channel, logged with the invoice attached
Retain 7 yearsper your Document Retention schedule
- Verify it against the agreement. Is this vendor on your list, did someone order the work, and does the amount match what was agreed? Your vendor list lives in the Technology app's plan & budget table: thirty seconds to check.
- Apply your approval threshold and get a second pair of eyes. If you haven't written the thresholds down, the Spending & Invoice Approval Policy drafter in Board Management turns your two dollar levels into an adopted policy with a quick-reference approval matrix. The rule that matters most: no one approves their own vendor. The person who hired the webmaster doesn't solo-approve the webmaster's invoice.
- Log it in the Invoice Approval Log (same card in Board Management): enter the date, vendor, amount, and budget line, and the app computes which tier of sign-off this invoice needs (officer, Finance Committee, or board), with unbudgeted items stepping up a tier. Record who approved it and when.
- Pay and record through your normal payment channel, with the invoice and approval attached to the record; mark it paid in the log so the trail is complete.
- Retain for seven years. Financial records belong on your retention schedule. Adopt one with Document Retention & Security if you haven't.
What you end up with
Produced: a verified, dual-approved payment with the invoice and approval trail attached, retained on schedule: the exact paper an auditor or a 990 preparer wants to see.
⚠ Watch out: paying a lookalike invoice nobody ordered. Invoice fraud specifically targets nonprofits: fake “domain renewal,” “directory listing,” and “publisher” invoices count on a busy volunteer just paying it. If it isn't on the vendor list and nobody ordered it, it doesn't get paid.
8Reimbursing volunteers and staff›
The situation
Your program lead bought supplies with her own card again, and someone drove four hours for the conference. You want to pay people back fairly, without accidentally creating taxable income.
Who's involved
Anyone who spends their own money for the organization, the treasurer, and the board (which adopts the policy once).
The walkthrough
- Adopt an accountable plan, the IRS term for a simple written policy with three rules: the expense has a business purpose, the person submits receipts, and they do it timely (within a reasonable window, and they return any excess advance). The HR Management app drafts the policy; file the adopted version with your Document Retention & Security policies.
- Use a simple reimbursement form: date, purpose, amount, receipt attached. One page. The form is the plan in action.
- Reimburse from the form, with the same second-pair-of-eyes approval as any other payment.
- Why this matters: reimbursements under an accountable plan are not taxable income to the volunteer or employee. Without the plan and the receipts, the IRS treats the payments as wages, with payroll tax and W-2 consequences.
What you end up with
Produced: a board-adopted accountable plan, a one-page reimbursement form, and a receipt trail that keeps every reimbursement non-taxable and audit-ready.
⚠ Watch out: flat allowances without receipts. A monthly “$100 for gas” with no documentation isn't a reimbursement: it's taxable wages, and the cleanup (back payroll taxes, amended forms) costs far more than the receipts would have.
9Hiring your first employee›
The situation
The work outgrew the volunteers, and the board approved a paid position. Between the handshake and the first paycheck sits a set of registrations and policies that are far easier to do in order than to retrofit.
Who's involved
The board (which approves the position and budget), the executive director or president, and the new hire.
The walkthrough
- Decide honestly: contractor or employee? The control test is the heart of it: if you control how, when, and where the work is done, provide the tools, and the relationship is ongoing, that's an employee (W-2), not a contractor (1099). The label in the agreement doesn't decide; the reality does.
- Complete payroll registrations: federal employer obligations, state withholding and unemployment insurance registration, new-hire reporting, and workers' compensation coverage where required.
- Adopt the core policies the HR Management app drafts: offer letter, position description, personnel policies, timekeeping, and the accountable plan from scenario 8.
- Update your insurance: review coverage in Risk Management; an employee changes your liability picture (and many states require workers' comp from employee one).
- Calendar the new obligations: payroll tax deposits and filings go into the Compliance Tracker with everything else.
What you end up with
Produced: a defensible worker classification, completed registrations, an offer letter and personnel policies on file, updated insurance, and payroll deadlines on the compliance calendar.
⚖ Employment law is state-specific and unforgiving: before the first payday, have a payroll provider or an employment attorney confirm your registrations and classification.
⚠ Watch out: calling an employee a contractor to skip payroll. Misclassification is one of the most commonly enforced mistakes small organizations make: back taxes, penalties, and personal liability for the people who signed off. If you control the work, run payroll.
Governance
Bylaws, elections, resignations, conflicts, onboarding, the handbook, and the budget. Seven moments where the difference between “fine” and “mess” is whether the record got made.
10Changing your bylaws›
The situation
Your bylaws say the board meets monthly; reality says quarterly. Or you need to add a treasurer's term limit. Time to amend, carefully, because the bylaws themselves tell you how.
Who's involved
Whoever proposes the change, the governance committee, the secretary, and the full board (and members, if your bylaws give members a vote).
The walkthrough
- Propose the amendment in writing: exact current language, exact new language, and why.
- Send it through governance committee review in Committees, so someone checks for ripple effects (does the change break a quorum rule elsewhere?).
- Give notice per your current bylaws: whatever notice period and method the existing amendment clause requires, follow it to the letter.
- Hold the vote at the required threshold (often two-thirds), board or members as your bylaws specify.
- Record the resolution in the minutes with Board Management: the amendment text, the vote count, the date.
- Update the Board Handbook in the Board Handbook Builder so the document everyone reads matches the document you just amended.
- Report significant changes: the IRS asks about significant governing-document changes on the 990 (Schedule O), and some states want amended bylaws or articles filed.
What you end up with
Produced: a clean amendment with committee review behind it, proper notice on record, a minuted resolution with the vote, an updated handbook, and the 990 disclosure queued.
⚖ Changes touching membership rights, dissolution, or your purpose clause can have legal and tax-exemption consequences: run those past a nonprofit attorney before the vote.
⚠ Watch out: amending bylaws without following the amendment procedure in the bylaws. An amendment adopted with the wrong notice or threshold isn't an amendment: it's a future dispute, and every decision made under it is arguable.
11Elections and succession›
The situation
Terms are ending and it's election season. Done well, this is a calm annual ritual; done badly, it's the meeting where you discover nobody knows whose term ends when.
Who's involved
The nominating committee, the secretary, outgoing and incoming officers, and the full board (or membership, per your bylaws).
The walkthrough
- Stand up the nominating committee in the Committees app, with a charter from the template library so its mandate is clear.
- Build the slate: who's eligible, who's willing, who's right, matched against the term dates in the Board Management roster, which is where every member's term start and end should already live.
- Run the election per your bylaws (notice, quorum, method), and record the results in the election minutes with a resolution naming the new officers and their terms.
- Update the roster the same week: new terms, new offices, committee assignments.
- Hand off each office using the Board Officers app: each outgoing officer walks their successor through the role's worksheets and a succession plan export so nothing lives only in someone's head.
What you end up with
Produced: a vetted slate, election minutes and resolution, a roster with accurate term dates, and a documented handoff for every office.
⚠ Watch out: discovering at the meeting that nobody's term dates were tracked. “Wait, is Maria's term up this year or next?” is how boards end up with members serving expired terms and votes of questionable validity. The roster with term dates is the fix; keep it current all year.
12A board member resigns mid-term›
The situation
Your treasurer just emailed: new job, new city, effective the end of the month. You'll miss them, and you have an offboarding checklist to run, starting with the bank.
Who's involved
The departing member, the president, the secretary, and the remaining board.
The walkthrough
- Accept the resignation in writing. An email reply works; the point is a dated record of when service ends. File it.
- Check your bylaws' vacancy clause: most let the board appoint someone to serve out the term; some require an election.
- Pass a board resolution appointing the replacement (or confirming the seat stays open), recorded in the minutes via Board Management.
- Update the roster and committee assignments in Board Management and Committees: their committee seats need filling too.
- Run offboarding: remove app and email access, collect keys, and, above all, remove them as a bank signatory and from any payment authority. If they held an officer role, update any state filings that list officers.
What you end up with
Produced: a written resignation on file, an appointment resolution, a current roster, and a completed offboarding checklist, with the bank signature card updated.
⚠ Watch out: the departed member still on the bank account a year later. It happens constantly, and it's a problem for everyone: the organization has a non-member with payment authority, and the departed member carries liability they didn't ask to keep. Make the bank the first call, not the last.
13Annual conflict-of-interest season›
The situation
Once a year, every board member should put in writing what they have a stake in. Not because anyone is suspect, but because the 990 asks whether you do this, and the honest answer should be yes.
Who's involved
Every board member, the secretary or governance committee, and whoever preps the 990.
The walkthrough
- Run the yearly disclosure sweep with the conflict-of-interest automation in Committees (it's on the free tier): it generates the disclosure form from your COI policy.
- Collect a signed disclosure from every board member, including the ones who write “nothing to disclose.” The blank ones matter as much as the full ones.
- Review disclosures and log the review in the minutes: a line in the Board Management minutes noting the annual review happened, and how any disclosed conflicts will be handled (recusal from the relevant votes is the usual answer).
- Retain the signed forms per your Document Retention & Security schedule, with the year's governance records.
What you end up with
Produced: a signed disclosure from every member, a minuted record of the review, and a file that lets you answer the 990's governance questions with a clear conscience.
⚠ Watch out: disclosures collected once at founding and never again. The 990 asks whether officers and directors are required to disclose conflicts annually, and people's interests change. A 2019 disclosure doesn't cover the board member whose spouse's company started bidding on your printing last year.
14Onboarding a new board member›
The situation
You recruited someone great, they said yes, and their first meeting is in three weeks. What happens between now and then determines whether they contribute in month two or month twelve.
Who's involved
The new member, the president or a designated board buddy, and the secretary.
The walkthrough
- Send the Board Handbook from the Board Handbook Builder: bylaws, policies, roster, and the year's calendar in one document.
- Give them expectations in writing: a board role description (attendance, committee service, give/get if you have one) so the job they accepted is the job that exists.
- Point them at the Board Management Course modules on the board's legal duties and how meetings work: an hour of reading that prevents a year of guessing.
- Prep them for the first meeting: send the packet early, assign a buddy to sit with them, and give them one small concrete ask so they speak in their first meeting, not their fourth.
- Add them to the roster and a committee in Board Management and Committees, with their term dates entered on day one (see scenario 11).
What you end up with
Produced: a handbook in their hands, a signed role description, course modules underway, a committee seat, and a roster entry with term dates: a member who's productive by their second meeting.
⚠ Watch out: handing them 200 pages and nothing else. A document dump without a conversation, a buddy, or a first task is how enthusiastic recruits become silent seat-fillers. The handbook is the reference; the welcome is the onboarding.
15Keeping the Board Handbook current›
The situation
The handbook was great the day it was compiled. Then you amended the bylaws, adopted two policies, and launched a program, and now three different “current” versions are floating around inboxes.
Who's involved
The secretary (usually the keeper), the president, and everyone who relies on the handbook being right.
The walkthrough
- Set an annual review rhythm: a fixed point each year (right after elections works well) when the handbook is reviewed end to end.
- Know your update triggers between reviews: a bylaws amendment (scenario 10), a newly adopted policy, a new program, officer changes. Each one means the handbook is now wrong somewhere.
- Recompile, don't hand-edit. The Board Handbook compiler automation in the Board Handbook Builder rebuilds the document from your current bylaws, policies, and roster, so the handbook is generated from sources of truth instead of patched by hand.
- Version and retain: date each edition on the cover, distribute the new one with a clear “this replaces all prior versions,” and archive superseded editions per your Document Retention & Security schedule.
What you end up with
Produced: one dated, current handbook everyone is reading from; an archive of prior editions; and a standing trigger list so updates happen when the underlying documents change, not years later.
⚠ Watch out: three versions of “the handbook” in circulation. When the president's copy, the new member's copy, and the shared-drive copy disagree about quorum, you don't have a handbook: you have three opinions. Date the cover and recompile from source.
16The annual budget cycle›
The situation
It's budget season, and the board needs to adopt next year's budget. The old way: the treasurer guesses from last year's numbers. The better way: the people doing the work tell you what the work costs.
Who's involved
Every committee chair, the budget compiler (usually the treasurer), and the full board.
The walkthrough
Chairs build requestsline items in the Committees app
Submit to the compilerone click; reminders chase stragglers
Annual Budget Compilertotals computed, gap vs revenue, draft resolution
Board adoptsdiscussed, amended, resolved
- Chairs build line-item Budget Requests in the Committees app: each committee lists what it plans to do and what each line costs, with totals computed by the app.
- Each chair submits to the budget compiler (usually the treasurer) with one click.
- The Annual Budget Compiler in Board Management auto-collects the requests, computes totals in code (no spreadsheet formula typos), shows the gap against expected revenue, and drafts the adoption resolution.
- The board discusses and adopts, trimming or approving with the full picture in front of it, and the resolution lands in the minutes.
- Reminders run automatically on the Reminder Schedule, so the treasurer isn't personally chasing five chairs every October.
What you end up with
Produced: a consolidated board-draft budget built from real committee requests, a computed gap analysis, an adoption resolution in the minutes, and a paper trail from every line item back to the committee that asked for it.
⚠ Watch out: budgets built from last year's guesses instead of committee requests. Copy-paste-plus-3% budgets fund last year's organization, not next year's, and the chairs who were never asked feel exactly as bought-in as you'd expect.
23You publish a newsletter, journal, or books›
The situation
Your organization publishes: a monthly newsletter, a peer-reviewed-ish journal, subsidized books or pamphlets. Someone has to be the editor, and the moment there's an editor there's a governance question: who approves what? The answer that works is editorial independence inside a committee-approved policy: the editor runs the publication day to day, the committee owns the policy and the budget, and the board sees only policy and money.
Who's involved
The editor (or editors), the Publications & Communications Committee, the treasurer, and the board.
The walkthrough
- Adopt the Publications & Communications Committee charter from the charter library in the Committees app: it puts editorial oversight, publication budgets, and rights/copyright in one committee's charge, with editors sitting ex-officio so the people doing the work are in the room.
- The committee adopts an editorial policy: content standards, the review process, the publication calendar. The editor then runs day-to-day editorial decisions inside that policy with genuine editorial independence: the committee approved the rules of the game, not individual articles.
- The editor files a regular Publication Report: the Editor's Publication Report automation in the Committees app drafts it (what published, what's in the pipeline, readership, budget status, decisions needed with escalations clearly separated from FYIs) and submits it to the committee chair through the same submit pipeline every committee report uses.
- The publication budget rides the budget pipeline. Including any deliberate subsidy: “the journal loses $4,000 a year because it serves the mission” is a legitimate budget line when the mission justification is written down. It goes in as a committee Budget Request and reaches the board through the Annual Budget Compiler, exactly like scenario 16.
- Handle contributor agreements and copyright/licensing per the charter, before the first issue. Who owns each article, what rights the organization gets, what contributors can republish: settle it in a signed contributor agreement up front, not after a dispute.
- The committee reports to the board as usual. Only policy and money reach the board: the adopted editorial policy, the budget and subsidy, anything escalated in an editor's report. Individual articles never go to the board for approval.
What you end up with
Produced: an adopted committee charter and editorial policy, a regular editor's report trail to the committee, a board-approved publication budget (subsidy included, justified), and signed contributor agreements before anything ships.
⚠ Watch out: selling ads in the journal is the classic UBIT trigger. Your mission content isn't taxed, but advertising revenue often is, as unrelated business income, even inside an otherwise mission-pure publication.
⚖ Before you sell the first ad, talk to a tax professional about UBIT: the mission-content/ad-revenue line is well established and easy to plan around, and expensive to discover at 990 time.
People
Members and volunteers each move through a lifecycle, and each stage has one right move. Two full walkthroughs, each with its loop drawn out.
17The member lifecycle›
The situation
People join your club, stick around (or don't), renew (or don't), and a few stay for decades. Treating those as one undifferentiated “membership list” is how renewals quietly slip.
Who's involved
The membership chair (or whoever wears that hat), whoever owns the Membership app, and every member.
Straight talk: the dedicated Membership app is now live: a member roster with an automatic six-stage lifecycle, levels and dues, renewal reminders with your own payment link, and win-back automations. Donor Management remains the home for donation history; members who also give live in both.
The walkthrough
- Prospective: add interested people to the roster in the Membership app the day you meet them: no join date means they show as prospective automatically, so follow-up is a filtered list, not a memory exercise.
- New member welcome: when they join, record the join date and level; the lifecycle stage updates itself. Run the New Member Welcome and Dues Receipt automations, and make the first 30 days personal: an introduction, an invitation, a small role.
- Active & engaged: the roster tracks each member's level, dates, and notes, so you know who's drifting before they're gone.
- Renewing: the Renewals tab shows who's due in the next 45 days; send reminders (one at a time or in bulk) with your own payment link included, then one-click “Mark renewed” when dues come in.
- Lapsed win-back: past the grace window, members move to lapsed automatically; the win-back automations send a different message than prospects get: we noticed, we miss you, here's what's new.
- Life member recognition: life members stand outside the renewal cycle with their own status and their own moments: the Life Member Recognition automation, plus a note in the Annual Report.
What you end up with
Produced: a member roster with live lifecycle stages, dues receipts and welcome letters on record, renewal reminders that run themselves, a lapsed list with a win-back plan, and your long-haulers recognized by name.
⚠ Watch out: renewals left to memory. The member who lapsed didn't quit: nobody reminded them, nobody noticed, and by the time someone did, “rejoining” felt like a bigger decision than “renewing” ever would have.
18The volunteer lifecycle›
The situation
Volunteers are your workforce, and most clubs manage them on vibes: someone shows up, gets handed a task, drifts away, nobody says thank you. Each stage of the lifecycle has a better move.
Who's involved
The volunteer coordinator, the volunteers, and whoever owns risk and access decisions.
The walkthrough
- Recruit with role descriptions. Draft them in the Volunteer Management app: a clear ask (“two Saturdays a month, setup crew”) recruits better than “we need help.”
- Screen appropriately for the role. Driving members? Handling money? Working with minors? Match the screening to the risk: the app's screening guidance and the liability lesson it cross-links explain which roles need background checks and which just need a conversation.
- Onboard: a welcome message and a one-page orientation (who to ask, where things are, what safe looks like), both generated in Volunteer Management.
- Schedule & support: track who's signed up for what, and check in. An unsupported volunteer is a future no-show.
- Recognize: the recognition automations draft thank-you letters and service milestones; recognition is the volunteer paycheck, so run it on a schedule, not on guilt.
- Offboard well: when someone steps away, a genuine thank-you plus access removal: keys, logins, anything they held. Departures handled warmly come back.
What you end up with
Produced: written role descriptions, screening matched to risk, an orientation one-pager, a schedule people actually appear on, recognition letters on a rhythm, and a clean access trail when people step away.
⚠ Watch out: skipping screening because “everyone knows everyone.” The roles that touch money, minors, or driving need real screening no matter how small the town is: the liability lesson cross-linked in Volunteer Management covers why, and what your insurer expects.
Compliance & Risk
The annual cycle, audits, crossing state lines, and the bad day. The pattern: one calendar, one habit, and one-pagers you read before you need them.
19The annual compliance cycle›
The situation
Federal filings, state filings, renewals, licenses, each with its own deadline, agency, and consequence. The fix isn't heroic memory; it's one calendar and one monthly habit.
Who's involved
The treasurer or executive director (calendar owner), the board (which should see status), and your tax preparer.
The walkthrough
- Make the Compliance Tracker the single calendar. Federal: the 990 family (990-N, 990-EZ, or 990, due 4½ months after your fiscal year ends). State: the annual corporate report. Fundraising: charitable solicitation registration and its renewal in every state where you solicit. Plus any local licenses and permits. If it has a deadline, it lives here, nowhere else.
- Build the monthly habit: once a month, open the tracker and look 60 days ahead. Ten minutes. Mark what's done, start what's due.
- At 990 time, the IRS Forms Assistant confirms which 990 version applies, works you through the checklist, and hands your filer a clean, organized package instead of a shoebox.
- Log completions back into the tracker so next year's deadline auto-renews with this year's filing attached.
What you end up with
Produced: every deadline in one place, a monthly ten-minute review habit, a filer-ready 990 package, and a year-over-year record of what was filed when.
⚠ Watch out: the state solicitation renewal that lapsed silently. Charitable registration renewals don't announce themselves the way the 990 does: they just expire, and you find out when a grant application asks for your current registration number and you don't have one.
20Internal and external audits›
The situation
“Audit” means two different things: the yearly internal look you give yourselves, and the external financial audit a funder or state may eventually require. Do the first regularly and the second stops being scary.
Who's involved
The executive director (internal), the finance committee and board (external), and eventually an independent CPA firm.
The walkthrough
- Internal, yearly: run the Operations Audit. It baselines the whole organization (governance, finances, compliance, technology) and hands you a prioritized fix list tied to the app that fixes each item.
- Know when an external engagement makes sense. A full financial audit, a review, or a compilation (in descending order of depth and cost) is often triggered by a grant requirement or a state revenue threshold: many states require an audit above a certain contribution level. Don't buy more assurance than you're required to or your funders ask for.
- The finance committee owns the relationship: it recommends the engagement, receives the auditor's findings, and reports to the board: the auditor should answer to the board, not to staff.
- Select the auditor by board resolution, recorded in the minutes via Board Management.
- The document pull: auditors ask for minutes, policies, contracts, bank records, and grant files. If you've been living by your Document Retention & Security schedule, this is an afternoon, not a crisis.
What you end up with
Produced: an annual internal baseline with a prioritized fix list, a board resolution selecting any external auditor, and, when the external audit comes, a document pull that takes hours instead of weeks.
⚠ Watch out: the first-audit document scramble. Organizations that never practiced retention spend their first audit reconstructing two years of minutes and hunting for signed contracts, billed at the auditor's hourly rate. The retention schedule you adopt today is the audit you breeze through later.
21Expanding to another state›
The situation
Your program is crossing the state line: a chapter, an event, or just a growing cluster of donors in the next state over. Each state treats you as a guest who needs to register before working the room.
Who's involved
The board (which approves expansion), the executive director, and whoever owns the compliance calendar.
The walkthrough
- Foreign-qualify with the new state if you'll operate there: “foreign” just means out-of-state. It's a registration with their corporate filing office, usually with a registered agent requirement.
- Register for charitable solicitation before fundraising there. Most states require registration before you ask their residents for money, and online fundraising blurs the lines: a Donate button reachable nationwide, targeted emails into a state, or repeated gifts from a state's residents can each trigger registration duties depending on the state.
- Load the new deadlines into the Compliance Tracker: the new state's annual report, solicitation renewal, and any tax registrations, alongside everything you already track.
- Check the name. If your name is taken in the new state, you'll need to register under an alternate name there: the Name Change app walks through the options if a broader rename is the answer.
What you end up with
Produced: foreign qualification on file, solicitation registration in place before the first ask, the new state's deadlines on your one calendar, and a name that's clear to use.
⚖ Multi-state solicitation rules, especially for online fundraising, vary enough that a quick consult with a nonprofit attorney or a registration service is money well spent before you expand.
⚠ Watch out: “we just have a few donors there.” Soliciting a state's residents usually counts as soliciting in that state, regardless of volume. The handful-of-donors stage is exactly when registering is cheap and easy: the enforcement letter stage is neither.
22Something went wrong: the first 48 hours›
The situation
A volunteer got hurt at the event. Or you found donor data somewhere it shouldn't be. Or an IRS envelope is sitting on the table. The first 48 hours decide whether this is a managed incident or a compounding one.
Who's involved
Whoever discovered it, the president and executive director, your insurer, and possibly counsel.
The walkthrough
- Stay calm and stabilize. Injury: care for the person first, everything else second. Data breach: contain it, change credentials, cut the access. IRS letter: read it fully and note the response deadline; most IRS letters are routine and answerable.
- Pull the one-pager you (ideally) already have. Risk Management generates the “if the worst happens” emergency one-pager; the Technology app has the security-incident one-pager. If you don't have them yet, generating them today is this scenario's real homework.
- Notify your insurer promptly for anything that could become a claim, injuries especially. Promptly means days, not “once we see if it blows over.”
- Document everything as it happens: who, what, when, who was told, what was done. Contemporaneous notes are gold; reconstructed memories are not.
- Know when to call counsel immediately: anyone threatens to sue, law enforcement is involved, the breach includes sensitive personal data (state notification laws may apply), or the IRS letter mentions examination or revocation.
- Afterward, debrief: what failed, what the fix is, and which app's checklist now gets an item.
What you end up with
Produced: a stabilized situation, a notified insurer, a contemporaneous incident record, counsel engaged where it matters, and an updated one-pager so the next 48 hours go better than these did.
⚖ For injuries with potential claims, data breaches involving personal information, or any IRS examination notice, call a qualified attorney early: the first conversations set the tone for everything after.
⚠ Watch out: the cover-up instinct. Sitting on an incident hoping it resolves itself is the one move that makes everything worse: late notice can void your insurance coverage, breach-notification clocks keep ticking, and IRS deadlines don't wait. Report early, document honestly.
💡 One habit beats all of these: the scenarios above go badly for organizations that improvise and smoothly for organizations with the record already in place. The Platform Workflows shows how to build that record into your weekly and monthly rhythm: see pricing for details.