Compounding Designs

Hi Reader,

The nonprofits doing the most this spring aren't out-hustling anyone. They're using better designs.

Inside this issue: The Patterson Foundation's $25-to-$100 match design and why no-cap micro-matches favor small nonprofits over the usual suspects. How AFSP and JED structured a true merger of equals — and what nonprofits considering consolidation should copy from their integration plan. A $28.4 million veteran housing project built on a planned gift from decades ago and three partners who each brought a different asset to the table. Plus a state-by-state charitable solicitation registration audit you can run before your next email send. The Google Ad Grant fix that recovers most of the $9,700 a month in free Google traffic the average nonprofit leaves on the table. And a volunteer waiver review most organizations haven't run in years. Three AI prompts your team will actually use, and a board exercise that surfaces how many of your board members can actually explain the money.

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A Community Foundation Raised $16.7 Million in 24 Hours — And the Match Rule Is What You Should Copy

Most giving days reward the nonprofits that already have the biggest donor lists. The 2026 Giving Challenge in Sarasota was designed to do the opposite. From noon to noon on April 15-16, more than 50,900 donors made nearly 88,000 gifts to 751 nonprofits across Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, and DeSoto counties. The Community Foundation of Sarasota County reported $16.7 million raised, all unrestricted.

The mechanism that did the work was the match. The Patterson Foundation contributed $6.5 million in matching dollars, but they only matched gifts between $25 and $100, one-to-one, per unique donor, per nonprofit, with no cap on how many unique-donor matches a single organization could earn. A nonprofit with 200 supporters who each gave $50 collected $10,000 in matched gifts. A nonprofit with one $50,000 donor collected nothing extra. The rule rewarded breadth over wealth.

This is not an accident of philanthropy. The Patterson Foundation has now contributed more than $43 million to the Giving Challenge across ten years, and the match design has held steady. The bet is structural: that the long-term health of a region's nonprofit sector is better measured by the number of donors actively giving than by the size of any one major gift.

Why this matters to your organization: most small nonprofits look at giving days and conclude they can't compete. They're right about whales. They're wrong about the design that's actually winning these events.

Here's how to start. If your community foundation runs a giving day, find out the exact match rule before you build the campaign — caps, minimums, per-donor limits, all of it. Build your appeal around the match math. If the rule is $25-$100 with no cap, your goal is volume of unique donors, not size of average gift. That changes what you ask for. It changes who you ask. It changes the channels you use — board members texting their kids' soccer parents matters more than the email blast to the major-gift list.

If your community foundation doesn't run a giving day with a small-gift match, ask why not. Send them the Sarasota Giving Challenge results. Community foundations across the country watch each other. Patterson Foundation's match design has been imitated for a decade because it works. The case for adopting it in your region is already made — somebody just has to bring it.

The uncomfortable truth: if your nonprofit's fundraising depends on a small number of large donors, a single household decision could cut your revenue in half this year. A donor base of 500 people giving $50 each is more durable than two donors giving $12,500 each, even though the math says the same. Match designs like Patterson's are one of the few mechanisms that pay you to build the durable version.

Sources: Community Foundation of Sarasota County — 2026 Giving Challenge Results · The Patterson Foundation — Tenth Giving Challenge Closes · Giving Challenge — official site​

AFSP and JED Announced a Merger of Equals — And the Structure Is the Lesson

On April 21, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and The Jed Foundation announced their intent to combine into the nation's largest suicide-prevention nonprofit. The combined organization will operate with a $75 million annual budget and approximately $140 million in net assets, with closing expected by fall 2026.

The structure is what's worth studying.

This is a "merger of equals" rather than an acquisition — a distinction most nonprofit consolidations skip because it's harder to negotiate. JED's CEO, John MacPhee, will lead the combined organization. JED's Board Chair Michael Satow and AFSP's Board Chair Ray Paul Jr. will serve as co-chairs for one year, after which Satow takes the chair role solo. The combined entity will operate under the dual name AFSP/JED for 18 months while a permanent name is determined. AFSP's research and chapter network and JED's youth-focused systems work both continue under their existing brands during integration.

Each piece of that structure solves a known problem in nonprofit mergers. The named CEO removes the leadership ambiguity that kills most deals in due diligence. The 12-month co-chair arrangement gives both boards continuity instead of forcing a winner-take-all governance handoff. The 18-month dual-name period keeps donors and beneficiaries from feeling whiplashed by an overnight rebrand. The retention of both program brands during integration protects the operating value of each organization while the combined strategy gets sorted out.

Why this matters: when nonprofit mergers underperform, the cause is rarely the financial model. It's the governance design — and the integration period that follows. Mission Plus Strategy's longitudinal research on nonprofit mergers tracks how the integration period determines whether the combined organization actually delivers more than the parts. The AFSP/JED design is built to handle that period deliberately rather than improvising through it.

Your move. If your nonprofit has ever discussed merging with another organization in your space — and most have — pull this announcement up the next time the conversation happens. The deal points worth copying are: name the CEO before you announce, structure board governance for transition rather than handoff, keep both program brands operating during integration, and set a hard date for the combined name decision so the dual-name period doesn't drift.

If your board has been told a merger would be "too complicated to execute," the AFSP/JED structure is the counter-evidence. Two organizations with $140 million in combined assets and decades of independent culture figured out the governance design in less than a year of negotiation. The smaller you are, the easier this gets, not the harder.

Sources: AFSP — Announcement of Intent to Merge as Equals · The Jed Foundation — Joint Announcement · Psychiatric Times — Coverage of the Merger​

A Holocaust Survivor's Bequest Is Funding $28 Million in Veteran Housing — And Three Partners Are Making It Work

On April 2, ground broke on a 30-unit affordable housing development at 1351 North E Street in San Bernardino. The $28.4 million project will house veterans and their families earning between 30% and 50% of Area Median Income, with half the units reserved for veterans experiencing homelessness. On-site services from U.S.VETS will include mental health support, career development, and peer engagement. Completion is scheduled for 2027.

The land underneath all of it came from John Boruchin, a Holocaust survivor liberated by American troops in World War II who built a successful homebuilding career in San Bernardino County and put a parcel of land into his estate plan decades ago, designated through the Jewish National Fund to support housing for veterans. Boruchin and his wife Dora's planned gift covered the land — without it, the project's financing wouldn't have worked at this scale.

The project is also a five-partner stack (including the original donor). U.S.VETS — the largest nonprofit working on veteran homelessness — runs the supportive services and resident engagement. Kingdom Development Inc. is the affordable housing developer. The City of San Bernardino approved a $4 million construction loan, and San Bernardino County contributed $5 million through its Community Development and Housing Department. Each partner brought something the others couldn't supply: land, expertise, capital, and political authorization.

This is the architecture worth studying. Most small nonprofits will never run a $28 million capital project. But every nonprofit that owns or controls a real-estate asset — donated land, a half-empty building, an unused parking lot — is sitting on the same kind of catalytic resource the Boruchin estate provided here. And every nonprofit serving a high-need population has access to government partners with budgets allocated for exactly this kind of project, if the nonprofit walks in with a structured proposal.

Why does this matter to your organization? Because two of the most powerful funding sources in the nonprofit sector — planned giving and government partnerships — get treated as long-shot bets by most boards. They aren't. They're under-cultivated.

Here's your Monday morning version. If your nonprofit has any real-estate or land asset, ask your finance committee what its current use is and what its highest-impact alternative use would be. If you don't know, schedule a 30-minute conversation with a nonprofit-experienced commercial real estate broker. Most will do this for free as a relationship investment.

If your nonprofit serves veterans, formerly homeless populations, people with disabilities, or any other group covered by a federally targeted housing program, identify the affordable-housing developer in your service area who's already done a tax-credit deal. There are usually three to five in any metro region. Ask them what kind of partner role they need from a service provider on their next project. Be specific about what your organization can contribute — case management, clinical hours, peer support, lived experience — and what you'd need in return. The deal is almost always available. Most nonprofits don't ask.

The structural insight here is how nonprofits combine assets they hold quietly — a building, a relationship, a network of clients, a board member's professional expertise — into projects that exceed any single organization's capacity. Three small nonprofits running a coordinated proposal to a city housing department will beat one large nonprofit doing the same thing alone. The Boruchin gift is the prompt for this issue, not the lesson. The lesson is: who else needs to be at your table for the next ask?

Sources: San Bernardino County — County Supports Affordable Housing for Veterans · Inland Empire Community News — Holocaust Survivor Donates Land · U.S.VETS — E-Street, San Bernardino​

Audit Where You're Legally Allowed to Solicit Donations Before Your Next Email Send

Most small nonprofits don't realize that a single online donation accepted from the wrong state can trigger registration requirements they haven't met. 41 states and the District of Columbia require nonprofits to register before soliciting, and once your "Donate" button is live, you're soliciting nationally. California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington enforce these requirements aggressively, with annual penalties running $1,000+ per unregistered year — and some states impose personal liability on board members for repeated noncompliance.

Block 90 minutes this week. Pull a list of every state from which you've received an online donation in the past 12 months — your payment processor or CRM can produce that report. Cross-reference against the state-by-state registration requirements. For every state where you've accepted gifts but aren't registered, decide one of three things: register (filing fees are modest in most states), block donations from that state on your donate page, or accept the risk and document the decision in your board minutes.

For most nonprofits, you're either registered in three states and need to add five, or you're registered in zero states and need to register in two or three. Either way, 90 minutes this week beats a state attorney general inquiry that takes 90 days to answer.

Move Your Google Ad Grant from $300 a Month to $8,000 — In One Afternoon

Every eligible 501(c)(3) gets $10,000 per month in free Google Search ads. The average Ad Grant account uses about $300 of that — roughly 3%. The other $9,700, every month, goes unused. Across the sector, that's billions of dollars in free Google traffic nonprofits are simply leaving on the table. Well-managed accounts routinely capture 80-90% of the available spend. The gap comes down to keyword strategy and account hygiene. This one Quick Hit will pay for your NGN Premium newsletter subscription in perpetuity.

You can do this on your own, but I wouldn't recommend it. If you want to try, block one focused afternoon. Log into your Google Ad Grants account. Pull your last three months of campaign performance. List your top 10 keywords. If they're broad terms like "donate," "nonprofit," or "volunteer," they're costing you compliance — Google requires a 5% click-through rate to keep the grant active, and broad keywords kill CTR. Replace them with long-tail phrases that include your service area and a specific service: "free legal help [city]," "after-school program [neighborhood]," "food pantry near [zip code]." Update your ad copy to match. Add at least two sitelinks per ad group.

If managing this internally isn't realistic (and for most nonprofits it is not), certified Ad Grant management firms charge $300-$800 per month flat. A nonprofit moving from $300 in monthly captured value to $8,000 nets more than $7,000 per month after fees — annualized, that's $85,000+ in donor and client acquisition value for a part-time vendor relationship.

Pull Your Volunteer Waivers — They're Probably Already Out of Date

I've been writing a lot about volunteers this past month. Three recent posts on the Insight Exchange work through the cultural and financial dimensions of volunteer programs: When Nonprofit Volunteers Make Mistakes — Why Does Nobody Say Anything?, Nonprofit Volunteer Management Costs Money — Not Doing It Costs More, and Your Nonprofit Volunteers Fall Through Every Safety Net — And Most Organizations Don't Know It. The Quick Hit below is the structural piece all three posts assume but don't dwell on — the legal paper that protects your organization when the situations those posts describe actually happen.

Most nonprofit volunteer waivers were drafted years ago and never reviewed. Then the program added a new activity. Then the state amended its volunteer protection statute. Then a new minor-consent rule passed. The waiver in your filing cabinet is signed, filed, and quietly useless against any of those changes.

Block 90 minutes this week. Pull every active volunteer waiver and release form your organization uses. List the activities they actually cover — does the waiver explicitly name "tutoring," "transportation in personal vehicles," "outdoor work with hand tools," and any other activities you've added in the past 12 months? Check the parental-consent language for volunteers under 18. Confirm the form names the right legal entity (your current 501(c)(3), not an old fiscal sponsor or a prior name).

Then send the package to a nonprofit-experienced attorney for a 30-minute review. Many will charge $200-$400 as a relationship investment, especially if you're an existing client. One slip-and-fall, one minor injury, one transportation incident with an outdated waiver costs tens of thousands to defend before the merits even matter. Ninety minutes plus a quick legal review beats discovering the waiver gap during a deposition.

Build a One-Page Risk Register for Your Nonprofit's Top 10 Threats

Most nonprofits don't have a risk register because the consultants who sell them charge $15,000 and produce a 40-page document nobody reads. You don't need that. You need one page your senior team and board can scan in 90 seconds, updated every 90 days. Knowing the top ten things that could hurt your organization isn't pessimistic — it's the precondition for spending your time on what matters instead of what feels urgent.

Draft a Story-First Annual Report Before You Collect a Single Stat

Most nonprofit annual reports start the same way: the development team collects stats, the design team makes them pretty, and the ED writes a letter explaining what the numbers "really mean." The result is a brochure, not a story. Donors who pick it up see effort, not impact. The prompt below builds the narrative first — the stats arrive in service of the story rather than the other way around.

Run a "Should We Still Be Doing This?" Audit on Your Five Largest Programs

Most nonprofit programs survive past their useful life because nobody asks the hard question. The grant renews, the staff are good people, the spreadsheet shows participation. Meanwhile your strongest hours and your tightest dollars go to a program your strategic plan from 2019 said was important and your 2026 mission statement quietly outgrew. The prompt below forces the comparison. You don't have to act on the answer this week. You just have to know.

The Sixty-Second Budget Test: How Many of Your Board Members Can Actually Explain Your Money Situation

Board Financial Literacy — 20 minutes

What makes it worth trying: Most nonprofit boards have one or two members who can explain the budget. Everyone else nods. The annual financial review goes through the treasurer, the audit committee chair speaks for ten minutes, and the rest of the board approves a document they don't fully understand. This exercise surfaces the gap honestly in 20 minutes and gives the board chair specific information about who needs financial onboarding before the next strategic decision arrives.

What you need: A printed handout (or anonymous shared form) with three short-answer questions:

1. Within $25,000, what is our annual operating budget?
2. What is our largest revenue source as a percentage of total revenue?
3. How many months of operating expenses do we hold in reserves?

Add a fourth question if your organization has a recent strategic decision tied to finances: "What is the projected ROI or break-even point for [name the decision]?"

How to run it:

Step 1 (3 minutes): The board chair frames the exercise. Not knowing the answers isn't shameful — but not knowing and pretending is the actual risk. The exercise is private answers first, then a reveal.

Step 2 (5 minutes): Each board member privately writes their answers to all three questions. No reference to materials. No discussion. Sixty seconds per question.

Step 3 (7 minutes): The treasurer reveals the actual answers. The chair asks each board member how confident they were — high, medium, low — without naming whose answer was what. Look for the pattern: how many board members were within 10% of the budget figure? How many knew the largest revenue source within 5 percentage points? How many were within one month on reserves?

Step 4 (5 minutes): Make one decision together. If more than half the board missed by significant margins, the board adopts a 30-minute "financial fluency" agenda item at every other meeting until the gap closes — not a treasurer's report, but a structured walk-through of one financial concept (revenue recognition, restricted vs. unrestricted, reserve targets, program cost allocation). The treasurer or audit chair leads each one.

In-person: Paper handouts collected before the reveal. Anonymous tally written on a flip chart.

Virtual: A Google Form with anonymous responses. Show the response distribution on screen during the reveal.

Watch out for: The board member who claims to have known the answer but didn't write it down. The exercise depends on private commitment to a number before the reveal — without that, every board member can convince themselves they "knew it." Also watch for the treasurer or audit chair feeling defensive that other members don't track the finances. The diagnostic isn't about whether the treasurer is doing their job. It's about whether the board collectively understands the money it's being asked to govern.

You'll know it worked when: At the next board meeting, at least three board members raise specific financial questions during routine reports — not "how is the budget tracking" but "I noticed our individual giving is at 47% of revenue and our largest grant ends in November. What's the contingency?" The real signal is whether the financial literacy agenda items survive past the second one. Most don't, because the discomfort is the work.

That's this week's NGN Premium. One question to sit with: Of the three structural designs in this issue — a small-gift match, a merger of equals, a multi-partner real-estate stack — which one is closest to a move your organization could be making this quarter, if someone on your team had the authority and the time to start? Better to know the answer than to keep working harder on what the current design can't deliver. And don't forget that Google Ad quick hit!

See you next week.

— Ted

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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.