38 Free Nonprofit Webinars for December 2020

Every month, I compile the internet’s biggest list of free nonprofit webinars.

As we get closer to the new year, it’s time for nonprofits to take all we learned in 2020 and start planning for a successful 2021. This month, nonprofit experts are offering resources on how to grow your community and revenue, even if the COVID-19 pandemic continues well into the year.

December webinar topics include year-end fundraising, legacy giving, corporate giving, volunteer engagement, nonprofit marketing and much more.

Wild Apricot also continues to present Targeted Impact, a bi-weekly Q&A session with experts in the nonprofit and membership management space.

Be sure to save the date for the December session:

December 3, 3:00PM – with Andrew McWhaw

Now onto this month’s webinars. Please note, all times are indicated in EST.

November 24, 2:00PM

It’s common knowledge that philanthropy has always focused on appealing to a traditional, older, white, and wealthy donor base. This type of thinking has nonprofit organizations limiting their donor reach and leaving other generations on the giving sidelines. With Millennials and Gen Z dominating 1/3 of the workforce, now is the time to focus on changing your organizations fundraising plan.

During this webinar you will learn:

About Millennials and Gen Z; who are they really?
The value in engaging a wider audience
How to engage & influence different generations

This webinar will equip you with knowledge and resources to successfully open up your future fundraising strategy to a larger demographic.

November 26, 2:00PM

Do you sometimes feel that your membership is like a leaky boat? Every time you look at your database, you notice a few members have left?

In this free 45-minute webinar, you’ll learn how to:

Get your members to renew on their own, so you don’t have to chase them
Automate your new member onboarding process and save hours each week
Quickly identify who is about to leave, and what you can do to keep them

December 1, 12:00PM

This workshop is designed to give an overview of how to host a great online event. We will be covering tips on how to use and implement your platform of choice into your organization’s mission and event goals, as well as how to engage attendees with it. Attendees will gain an understanding of what support they will need internally or externally to run a seamless online event.

December 1, 2:00PM

Interviewing each prospective volunteer can seem overwhelming, but it’s one of the best ways to ensure that the volunteers you recruit are the volunteers you need. This webinar introduces a variety of question types used in volunteer interviews and offers strategies for honing your interview skills. Materials will be provided to help you implement this process in your organization, as well as a training syllabus so you can learn how to recruit and train a volunteer staff to assist with prospective volunteer interviews.

What You’ll Learn:

December 2, 11:00AM

In this 1-hour webinar, a group of expert organizers who have run exceptionally successful virtual events will directly share their tips and experiences:

How to price virtual event tickets
Why it’s easier to attract attendees than ever
How to prepare speakers and run sessions smoothly
How to make virtual events more exciting and fun
How to promote exhibitors and sponsors

December 2, 2:00PM

Are you doing the right things to recognize the work volunteers do for your organization? Are your recognition strategies and events stuck in the past? In this webinar we’ll discuss what motivates today’s volunteers and discuss strategies for matching recognition to motivation. We’ll also share examples and ideas to incorporate creative and meaningful recognition into your volunteer engagement strategy.

What You’ll Learn:

December 2, 3:00PM

Nonprofits need donors and volunteers to thrive. But, a worthy mission isn’t enough to win them over. People support specific nonprofits for many important reasons, including the strength of a nonprofit’s visual brand. A strong visual brand can inspire confidence and dramatically boost donations. This interactive session will discuss the power of visual branding for nonprofits, when it’s time to refresh a visual brand, how to build loyalty and engagement through the visual brand design process, and simple ways to personalize stock template websites and emails.

Do you have a logo, website, or landing page that you want reviewed? Ross will be giving personalized feedback during his presentation, and that could include you! Fill out this form with the assets you would like reviewed by Dec. 1, if you wish to be included during Ross’s presentation.

December 3, 12:00PM

Everyone has biases even though people often are not aware of their biases. That is called an unconscious or implicit bias. Whether intentional or not , implicit biases influence decisions and the culture in the workplace. Having a bias doesn’t make someone a bad person as not every bias is negative or hurtful. It’s not recognizing and shifting negative institutional biases that leads to issues in the workplace.

December 3, 1:00PM

Happy (gulp) New Year. 2020 was likely the year we won’t forget for a long time. From the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and WE Charity controversy, to the soul searching that has taken place related to systemic racism, the nation’s charities and nonprofits have been in ‘pivot overdrive’. In this session, Imagine Canada’s President & CEO, Bruce MacDonald, will facilitate a panel discussion featuring Paul Nazareth of the Canadian Association of Gift Planners (CAGP), Paula Speevak of Volunteer Canada, and Sandra Sualim from AFP Toronto and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada Foundation. Panelists will address some of the key implications from 2020 and look ahead to the coming year to provide sector leaders with insights that they can use when building their upcoming plans.

December 3, 1:00PM

This webinar with Classy partner Double the Donation dives into how employer matching gift programs can drive year-end giving revenue. We’ll explore the matching gift industry prevalence and why most organizations are not taking full advantage of these programs.

Get ready for:

Seamless strategies to close the donor awareness gap surrounding matching gifts
Simple and efficient ways to add matching gift revenue to your EOY campaign
A strategic walkthrough of the Classy and Double the Donation automated matching gift integration

December 3, 2:00PM

Is your membership website an engine that brings in new members while you sleep? If not, I’ll show you how anyone with no tech experience can use membership management software to turn their website into a new member recruiter — in just an afternoon.

In this free 45-minute webinar, you’ll learn:

3 website changes that will start attracting new members right away
How to get anyone on your board to easily make updates by themselves (even if they don’t have any tech experience)
The top website features our most successful clients use to drive membership

December 3, 2:00PM

When was the last time you reviewed your Volunteer Handbook or Policies and Procedures Manual? It’s probably been too long. Learn how to create a living document that can help both paid and volunteer staff be better informed and know what is expected of them. A good Volunteer Handbook can also help you better identify and deal with challenging volunteers. Whether you’re just starting to create a Handbook or if you’re looking for best practices on information to include, this webinar will evaluate the Handbook you have and help you create a stronger framework for your volunteer engagement program.

What You’ll Learn:

How to create a living document that can help both paid and volunteer staff be better informed and know what is expected of them.
How to deal with challenging volunteers.
How to evaluate the Handbook you have.
How to create a stronger framework for your volunteer engagement program.

December 3, 2:00PM

One-third of all online donations occur in the month of December, which means that every nonprofit organization must have a clear plan for optimizing its year-end fundraising strategy.

In 2019, the CauseMic crew set out to research, monitor, and benchmark donor engagement, the donation experience, and cultivation tactics across 152 nonprofit organizations. The result? A comprehensive overview of nonprofit engagement from all sizes and sectors. Explore their key findings and take away easy wins that your nonprofit can use to upgrade your year-end strategy right away, even if your campaign is already underway.

This session will uncover findings, including:

How easy is it to sign up to receive a nonprofit newsletter?
How engaging were the cultivation emails?
How many required fields were included on donation pages?
What were the distractions throughout the donation process?
How strong was the value proposition?

December 3, 3:00PM

Wild Apricot’s ‘Targeted Impact’ is a free bi-weekly, expert Q+A session dedicated to answering all your questions on topics from Membership Growth to Virtual Fundraising and everything in-between. We want to provide you and your organization with reliable sources, tried and tested methods and insights that help you grow. So no matter what lies ahead, we can thrive, together.

December 3, 3:00PM

Legacy giving is a must for every organization, but it is so much more than posting something on your website.

If you want more true engagement with your donors you need to speak to them where they are in their age and stage of life.

Join Lori Kranczer, legacy giving expert and philanthropic advisor, to go over the ways to address a donor’s interest in legacy giving and how to have a conversation that brings out what the donor values to match to the best legacy giving options for them.

By participating in this session you will learn how:

To identify the different stages of a donor’s life to address their legacy interest
To match possible gift vehicles with your donor’s interest
To lead your donor through the legacy conversation
To track, and shorten, the nurture to close gift timeline

December 8, 11:00AM

It’s no secret that people are attached to their phones—checking email, social media, even shopping, purchasing and making donations. If you haven’t figured it out, your nonprofit needs an engaging mobile presence. This used to be a nice-to-have; now it’s a must-have.

Mobile marketing is a key component of any comprehensive marketing strategy. And optimizing your website for all devices and screens is crucial for staying relevant with today’s audiences, especially millennials and Gen Xers, but even the more tech-savvy baby boomers. And if you don’t keep up you’ll lag behind, losing online visitors, donors and, ultimately, donations.

Join Molly Coke for a webinar that explores mobile marketing and generational marketing, with an emphasis on:

4 reasons why your website needs to look great on a smartphone.
How each generation responds to marketing (and how to optimize your efforts).
5 tips for planning your mobile marketing strategy.
Discover why mobile marketing is so important and get valuable tips on how to market to each generation when you join Molly for this insightful free webinar.

December 8, 2:00PM

Integrating skills-based volunteers into your existing volunteer program is both exciting and scary. If you’re thinking about adding skilled volunteers to your program, or if you’ve just started, this seminar can help you make the experience successful for both the volunteer and the organization. Navigating the introduction of the idea into your organization, developing the art of delegating work to volunteers, and setting achievable outcomes will be covered.

What You’ll Learn:

December 8, 3:00PM

Everything you do as a nonprofit organization leads people back to your website. It is the center of your marketing universe and home base of your brand. Does your website captivate and engage people or is it merely an online brochure with a few photos and mission statement? In this session, we will share more than a decade of focus group research that reveals:

The 5 elements of an engaging website.
The one thing every nonprofit should be thinking about, but isn’t.
Real-world examples of nonprofit organizations that have mastered their online presence.

December 9, 12:00PM

Hosting a successful virtual event is now a critical part of every nonprofit’s plan. Utilizing our 10 years of experience in bringing the best practices of eCommerce to donor engagement, the team from Big River will walk you through the planning, considerations, and unique aspects you should bring to your next virtual event. All attendees will also receive a free copy of our eBook.

December 9, 1:00PM

A brand guide provides a roadmap for your visuals and messaging—does yours accurately express your organization’s mission and story?

This session will guide you through the steps of creating a comprehensive and user friendly brand guide that will help both your in-house team and outside partners express your brand accurately and consistently.

Since many nonprofits handle marketing tasks internally, having strong brand guidelines can make creating your organization’s marketing and communications easier and more efficient. Most importantly, it allows you to focus on what you do best—sharing your mission and serving your community.

December 9, 2:00PM

You want to share the impact volunteers have in your organization and in the community, but often the information you track doesn’t help you tell that story. This webinar will help you move past number of volunteers and number of hours and start telling the real story. You’ll learn about information gathering and the key components to good storytelling, how to evaluate your current measurements and how to build support for a more thorough measurement and evaluation program, and how to engage other staff – paid and volunteer – in this work. You’ll also receive a worksheet to help you begin to tell the story of volunteer impact in your organization.

What You’ll Learn:

What type of information is compelling to prospective volunteers, existing volunteers, organizational leaders, and supporters, donors and clients.
How to use this information to create a powerful story about the impact of volunteers in your organization.
How to create a plan for gathering and compiling information about your volunteer engagement program and using that to tell a compelling story about volunteer impact.

December 9, 2:00PM

Is your organization ready to seek corporate support? Corporate grantmakers are different from traditional foundations in many ways. This class provides a basic overview of:

The different types of corporate giving
What motivates corporations to give
How to find potential corporate partners

Outcomes:

December 10, 2:00PM

Are you the one who ends up staying late to get all the work done at your membership organization? Things like processing registrations, designing newsletters, and updating your website? In this webinar, we’ll show you how a typical membership manager uses Wild Apricot, the #1 rated membership management software, to automate 90% of these tasks to save 20 hours a week or more.

In this free 1-hour webinar, you’ll learn how to:

Completely automate payments for dues and events
Connect your website with your database so member records update automatically
Set up automated welcome emails and reminders for overdue payments
Create online registration forms and go completely paperless
And more!

December 10, 2:00PM

Join Candid, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and AmazonSmile to learn more about how AWS’s cloud computing services and the AmazonSmile program can help support your nonprofit’s fundraising and donor engagement goals. AmazonSmile will share how to best leverage their program to generate cash and product donations. SalsaLabs will share marketing best practices and how the new Engage with Salesforce Integration tool, powered by AWS, helps increase marketing automation and personalization in donor outreach. And you’ll learn from AWS experts about how cloud technology can help you enhance your communication strategy, improve digital engagement, and personalize donor engagement to reach the right audience, at the right time, with the right message.

December 10, 2:00PM

Our organizations have become incredibly resilient and adaptive this year. What’s next? In this session, we will learn tactical and pragmatic tools for understanding the digital, physical, or interpersonal relationships that directly affect your clients, services, and team. What processes and tools are working well, and where can we identify opportunities? We will learn how to create a service blueprint to capture a holistic look at your nonprofit in order to set you up for success in 2021.

December 10, 3:00PM

If 2020 has taught us anything, is that the world changes on a dime and our best-laid plans might need to be scrapped. Where does this leave nonprofit professionals who spend countless hours preparing a grant strategy? During this session, we’ll review what tried and true methods still have value, what might need to be changed, and what is still left unknown. You can start off 2021 with a better sense of how to be successful during times of uncertainty.

Learning objectives:

Review the impacts of 2020 activities on the philanthropic community.
Identify the types of grant seeking (and management) strategies that still work.
Discuss the steps to formulate a plan within your own organization.

December 15, 1:00PM

Your nonprofit measures data that matters. Yet, it is not enough to gather and measure data. You need to know how to identify and track your nonprofit’s key performance indicators (KPIs), analyze trends, understand correlations, and use them to create insightful reports.

This session will teach you how to define, determine, and track your KPIs. You will be provided with a host of KPI examples, best practices, and guidance on how to determine which KPIs are right for your nonprofit organization. You’ll learn how to make sense of the data you already have and leverage it to make informed decisions and grow your nonprofit.

December 15, 1:00PM

As the calendar year begins to wind down and you think about the new year, are you also thinking about how to strengthen your grant seeking strategy in the upcoming year?

Starting your year off with a strong plan and clear goals in place will ensure that you secure the funding necessary to achieve your goals for grant revenue.

Participating in “Start Your 2021 Grant Seeking Off Right!” will provide you with a strong understanding of your success in 2020 and how to set goals for 2021 that will help expand your grant seeking strategy and revenue. We will also discuss how to increase the engagement of your colleagues in being part of the grant planning process to further increase your success.

What You Will Learn from this Free Nonprofit Webinar:

How to define your success in current year beyond dollars awarded
How to set goals for your success in the upcoming year to include measurements beyond dollars awarded
How to engage your colleagues in being ready for the upcoming year

December 15, 2:00PM

What should you do when it’s time to change the policies and procedures that govern or guide the volunteers that work with your organization? How can you create a culture of inclusion and get buy-in for those new policies? This training will give you the tools to approach program changes in a strategic way. We will also cover what to do if volunteers either can’t or won’t adopt the policies, how to manage that situation, and what to do if ultimately you need to ask a volunteer to leave.

What You’ll Learn:

Theories for change management
Pitfalls and challenges around implementing changes in a volunteer engagement program
Opportunities to build buy-in and support for changes
What to do if you need to ask a volunteer to leave

December 15, 2:00PM

Preparing for year-end W-2s and 1099s is tough enough normally, but this year many will also be completing Paycheck Protection Program loan forgiveness applications that require significant payroll cost reporting.

Finding the needed reports can be challenging, and knowing what can be included for forgiveness is even harder. Join Gregg S. Bossen, CPA, and Anna Davis for a step-by-step walk-through of getting ready for payroll reporting at year-end, including PPP forgiveness payroll reporting requirements.

Topics include:

What P/R costs can be included on your PPP forgiveness application
Getting the PPP P/R cost reports needed to attached to your application
Checklists to help you get ready for year end W’2s and 1099s
Ask-the-experts session

December 15, 2:30PM

After you’ve received the first gift from someone, you want to convert that one-time donor into a lifelong supporter of your organization. With GivingTuesday in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to say “thank you” and turn your focus to sustaining donor engagement. By reaching your donors with timely, relevant, and personalized communications, you can build relationships with your audience and convert one-time donors in ongoing sustainers.

Join Whole Whale Account Manager Isabelle Brauer and Twilio.org’s Sr. Marketing Manager Jacob Talbot as they provide actionable tactics for retaining donors this year and next. In just 1 hour, they will outline essential techniques, technologies, and approaches for donor stewardship to build your list of dedicated supporters.

You will learn how to:

Tailor messaging to compel donors to give again
Nurture first time donors into repeat or monthly donors
Build multichannel donor engagement strategies
Integrate text messaging into your existing donor communications

December 15, 2:30PM

Online fundraising is managed most effectively when performance metrics are measured—something the most successful nonprofits do regularly. In this session, Firespring’s CEO Jay Wilkinson shares the best detailed formulas every nonprofit should use to track metrics and measure the success of their online fundraising efforts.

Join Jay in this metrics-driven webinar to learn:

7 steps to online fundraising success.
5 metrics to measure fundraising performance.
How to combat the donor retention problem.
The attributes of a killer email campaign.

December 16, 12:00PM

The board of directors of a nonprofit organization has legal responsibility for the organization’s work. The board is responsible for short and long-term planning, and they must ensure that systems are in place for administering and effectively using resources and guarding against misuse. In order to fulfill their responsibilities, board members must be able to rely on financial information that is accurate, timely, in context, and appropriate.

December 16, 1:00PM

Join fundraising master trainer, Chad Barger, CFRE, for a discussion on the importance of donor retention and learn simple, actionable steps that you can take to boost donor retention in your organization. Attendees will also complete several exercises which will review and map the donor touch points at their organization. Participants will leave the session with a greater understanding of what they can do to improve donor retention and the start of an improvement plan for their organization.

December 16, 2:00PM

Are you engaging volunteers with an eye to the future? Do you know what your volunteer program should look like in 3 or 5 years? Join us as we talk about the fundamentals for creating a strategic plan for volunteer engagement for your organizations. This webinar will include components that should be included as well as ideas for working with organization leaders to include strategic goals for volunteer engagement in your organization’s overall strategic plan.

What You’ll Learn:

Why a strategic plan for volunteer engagement is important.
How to incorporate key components into a strategic plan.
How you can use a strategic plan to communicate with organization stakeholders.
How creating a strategic plan can elevate the work that volunteers do in your organization.

December 17, 1:00PM

Instagram, owned by Facebook, now boasts over 1 billion monthly active users, with three-quarters of users under the age of 35. If you are looking for a way to connect with a younger audience, get more engagement, and build a vibrant fundraising community, Instagram could be the place for your nonprofit.

In the last year, Instagram has rolled out several features and tools to make charitable giving and fundraising much easier on the platform. With the advent of the Donate button for profiles and the Instagram Story Donation Sticker, getting your supporters to raise money for you and to drive donations is easier than ever.

During This Nonprofit Webinar You Will Learn:

How to get an Instagram Business Profile;
How to register with charitable giving tools;
How to set up the Donate button on your profile;
How to get the Instagram Story Donation Sticker;
How to promote these tools to your supporters.

December 17, 1:00PM

Navigating the pathway to merger is like putting together a fantastic puzzle. When successful, it results in a phenomenal achievement with lasting impact, but when one piece is missing, the original vision and goal remain unrealized.

In this workshop, explore the critical steps along the pathway to successful merger, including often overlooked but essential pieces of the puzzle.

We will discuss common scenarios that lend themselves to merger, identifying potential partners, and assessing collaborative possibilities. Throughout, we will examine vital lessons learned from both mergers that worked and those that didn’t.

You will start by determining if you should consider a merger. In some cases, it will be clear that other types of partnerships and alliances may be just as or even more beneficial.

From there, you will learn how to identify the best potential partners and know which factors can derail a merger before it even starts. Finally, you will learn how to assess and negotiate a merger.

Leave prepared to take a refreshed look at the sustained collaborations you enjoy today and those that may enhance your impact or sustainability tomorrow.

Learning objective:

Common scenarios leading to collaboration and merger.
Identifying potential partners.
Assessing success factors and potential barriers.
Understanding of process that leads to collaborative success.

December 17, 2:00PM

Have you noticed that it’s getting harder and harder to grow your membership?

In this free 1-hour webinar, you’ll learn:

All about The Tech Effect, the hidden threat that is making things harder for you to grow
5 proven strategies to address The Tech Effect and attract new members right away
How an easy tech solution can save you hours of administrative work every day

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