Hi Reader,
I don’t know about you, but Jenni and I (and two of our very close friends) participated in yesterday’s nationwide No Kings protests. Here’s a picture from the march and rally in Madison, WI:
Let me know if you marched. And if you didn't this time, I urge you to consider it the next time around. No matter your politics, we shouldn't have kings. Nonprofits have an enormous amount at stake given what's going on nationally and internationally, and people power works.
This week: two nonprofits worth stealing from, three things you can do before Friday, and three AI prompts that earn their keep.
- Two What's Most Good stories — a Missouri nonprofit splitting child care costs three ways, and a West Virginia program turning food into medicine.
- Three Quick Hits you can implement this week, and
- Three AI prompts for cash flow, crisis prep, and smarter hiring.
A reminder: our Read Good / Do Good Pledge sends 20% of NGN Premium's net profits to a nonprofit partner. Our inaugural partner is Rooted, a Madison-area organization that grows community-led food systems through urban farming, land access for BIPOC farmers, and youth education. Their Troy Farm CSA is open for sign-ups right now — Jenni and I are members, and the produce is outstanding. Check it out at rootedwi.org/troy-csa.
Missouri Nonprofit Launches Tri-Share Pilot That Splits Child Care Costs Three Ways
Community Partnership of the Ozarks in Springfield, Missouri has launched Child Care Works, a statewide pilot program that splits daycare costs equally among three parties: the employer, the employee, and the state. The program is now accepting applications in Greene County, with the nonprofit serving as the hub that connects employers, families, and the state subsidy.
It solves three problems at once. Parents get affordable child care. Employers retain workers who would otherwise leave because they can't find or afford care. And child care providers get stable, predictable revenue from three funding streams instead of one. No single party bears the full cost.
This is a tri-share model — the same structure that has been piloted in Michigan and North Carolina. What makes the Missouri version notable is that a community-based nonprofit is the convener. Community Partnership of the Ozarks is acting as the operational backbone: recruiting employers, managing enrollment, and coordinating state subsidy payments. That's a role any well-connected social services nonprofit could play in its own region.
If your organization serves working families — or if you've heard from clients that child care is the barrier to everything else — this model is worth studying. It doesn't require new legislation. It requires a nonprofit willing to sit at the table between employers and the state and make the math work.
Amanda Coleman of Community Partnership of the Ozarks is quoted in the KY3 coverage.
West Virginia "Food as Medicine" Program Gives Patients $100 Monthly Grocery Cards — and Just Got $1M to Expand
WVU Medicine's Food for Mountaineers program has received a new $1 million grant from the Highmark Foundation to expand its "food as medicine" initiative across West Virginia. The model is straightforward: primary care physicians refer patients facing food insecurity, and those patients receive debit cards loaded with $100 per month, usable at Kroger, Food Lion, Walmart, Amazon Fresh, Instacart, and Dollar General.
Since launching in 2024, the program has served over 1,100 individuals. An enrollment coordinator checks in with each patient monthly, and WVU Medicine is expanding the role of dieticians to provide more education around diet. They're even mailing out American Diabetes Association portion plates to help patients make better food decisions at home.
The timing matters. Congressional Republicans just cut SNAP funding by $186 billion over ten years — a 20% reduction, the largest in the program's history. Around 272,000 West Virginians rely on SNAP. Food for Mountaineers doesn't receive federal funding, which means it isn't exposed to those cuts. But it also means programs like this may become more important as the federal nutrition safety net shrinks.
Here's what makes this replicable. The program doesn't build a new food distribution system. It uses the grocery infrastructure that already exists and puts purchasing power directly in patients' hands. Physicians identify who needs help as part of routine care, which solves the targeting problem that most food access programs struggle with. And the debit card approach preserves dignity — families buy what they need, where they want.
If your nonprofit partners with a hospital system or a community health center, this model could be adapted without building a single new facility. The critical ingredients are physician referrals, a funding source for the cards, and a retail network — which already exists in every community in America. A smaller version serving 50 patients would cost roughly $60,000 per year in card funding alone, before coordination costs.
Sarah Patrick, WVU Medicine Population Health Medical Director, and Chris McCormick, Associate Vice President of Population Health, are both named in the coverage and are the people closest to the program's design. Source: WVU Medicine. Additional coverage: Moorefield Examiner.
Build a Grant Reporting Deadline Tracker
A Grant Professionals Association survey found that 67% of funders track "applicant reliability" and deprioritize organizations that miss deadlines. In 2019, three D.C. nonprofits that tutored kids in reading lost $3.75 million in AmeriCorps funding — not because they did anything wrong, but because the D.C. government missed a federal filing deadline. The nonprofits had no control over the error, but they lost the funding.
You can't control your funders' deadlines. You can control yours.
Open a spreadsheet. List every active grant. For each one, add: funder name, grant amount, next report due date, report type, responsible staff person, and a 30-day warning date. Set calendar reminders for the warning dates. Share the spreadsheet with your finance lead and program staff. Two hours of work. Even if you never miss a federal deadline, the more common failure is quieter: a late quarterly report that makes a program officer question whether you're on top of things. The cost of not doing this is losing a funder's trust — or losing the grant entirely.
Add an Impact Line to Every Auto-Receipt Email
Think about when a donor feels best about your organization. It's right after they give. That's when your receipt email lands — and for most organizations, it says nothing except the tax ID and the amount. That's a wasted opportunity.
Log into your donation platform. Find the auto-receipt template. Add one sentence after the tax information: "Your gift of [amount] helps us [specific, concrete impact]." Make it real — "provides 20 meals to families in our community" or "keeps our after-school program open for 3 more hours this week." Update it quarterly so it stays current. Thirty minutes of work. You're turning a transactional email into a retention tool at the exact moment your donor feels best about your organization.
Set Up Free Google Alerts for Your Organization
Most small nonprofits have no systematic way to know when they're mentioned in local media, in government documents, or in negative reviews. By the time you find out — if you find out — the window to respond has closed.
Go to google.com/alerts. Set up alerts for your organization's exact name (in quotes), your ED's name, and any major program names. Add one more for your sector plus your city — "homeless services Springfield" or "youth development Milwaukee." Set delivery to daily digest. Fifteen minutes, costs nothing. You'll know when you're mentioned in local media (amplify it), when someone posts a negative review (respond fast), and when a potential partner or funder is making news in your space. Here's a good setup guide from Bloomerang if you want to go deeper. Stop flying blind on your own reputation.
Build a 90-Day Cash Flow Forecast
You don't do this because you think you're going to run out of money next quarter. You do it because knowing — actually seeing the numbers week by week — gives you the freedom to stop worrying and start planning. Most EDs check the bank balance and hope. This prompt gives you a simple rolling forecast you can update in ten minutes a week.
PROMPT: Act as a nonprofit financial analyst. I'm going to give you my organization's revenue sources and timing (grants, donations, contracts, earned income) and our fixed monthly expenses. Build me a rolling 90-day cash flow projection, broken out by week. For each week, show expected inflows, expected outflows, and the running cash balance. Highlight any week where the balance drops below [our minimum comfort level — e.g., $10,000 or one payroll]. For any red-flag weeks, suggest three specific actions I could take now to close the gap — such as accelerating a grant draw, launching a short appeal, or deferring a non-critical expense. Keep the format simple enough that I can update it weekly in a spreadsheet.
Write a Crisis Statement Before You Need One
This one isn't about expecting the worst. It's about giving yourself fifteen minutes of calm before the storm ever arrives. Every ED has had the moment — the reporter calls, the board chair texts, a staff incident hits social media — and you freeze because nobody on your team has PR training and you don't know what to say first. Having a first draft ready in fifteen minutes instead of three days changes how the next 48 hours go.
PROMPT: Act as a nonprofit crisis communications advisor. I'm going to describe a hypothetical crisis scenario for my organization: [describe the situation — e.g., a negative news story about a former employee, a public complaint about services, a data breach, a funding scandal]. Draft three things for me: (1) A brief public statement (under 150 words) that acknowledges the situation, states what we know, and commits to next steps — without admitting liability or speculating. (2) A set of 5 talking points I can share with my board chair and senior staff so everyone is saying the same thing. (3) A priority contact list — who I should notify first, second, and third, and what to say to each. Assume I'm a small nonprofit with no PR staff.
Audit Your Job Posting Before It Goes Live
If you're struggling to attract qualified candidates — and especially diverse candidates — the problem might not be your salary or your mission. It might be your job posting. Research consistently shows that gendered language, inflated requirements, and insider jargon can cut your applicant pool dramatically — sometimes by half. This prompt takes any posting you've written and flags what might be turning good people away before they even apply.
PROMPT: Act as a nonprofit talent acquisition specialist with expertise in inclusive hiring. I'm going to paste in a job posting for a position at my organization. Review it and flag: (1) Any gendered language (words research shows discourage men or women from applying — e.g., "nurturing," "dominant," "competitive"). (2) Any requirements that may be unnecessary barriers — degree requirements where experience would suffice, years-of-experience thresholds that screen out career changers, or "nice to haves" that read as "must haves." (3) Any jargon or insider language that would confuse someone outside the nonprofit sector. (4) Any missing information a strong candidate would want before applying (salary range, remote policy, growth opportunities). For each flag, explain why it matters and suggest a replacement that broadens the pool without lowering your standards. Then give me a revised version of the full posting.
If something here saved you time this week, I'd like to know. If something's on your plate that I haven't covered yet, I'd like to know that more. Hit reply.
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Ted
P.S. The "Read Good / Do Good" Pledge provides 20&% of net profits from NGN Premium to a nonprofit partner.
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Founder and CEO Risk Alternatives, LLC 202.758.7572 (cell) 608.709.0793 (office) Website
Author of Managing Your Nonprofit for Resilience
We help nonprofits thrive by providing practical tools and support to address uncertainty and improve risk management.
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