Carolyn's Nonprofit Blog

Most recent activities are listed first.

2022 through 2025

I began supporting the work of Atlanta Grade School Friends in Atlanta, Texas at the very end of the year 2021. My focus has been on helping a strong nonprofit that is all-volunteer enhance and modernize its organizational infrastructure in preparation for major gift fundraising and preservation of the historic, WPA-era Atlanta-Miller Grade School. I work primarily remotely from my dedicated home office in Central Texas. My partner is long-time friend and professional colleague Toni S. Turner.

We have secured the “gold seal” for public transparency from Candid GuideStar the past several years; we have a polished profile (and reviews) on GreatNonprofits; a new website on WordPress; and I launched a MailChimp account to establish regular e-communications (monthly newsletters since 2022). Online giving has been made possible via BetterUnite.

Our new YouTube channel @atlantagradeschoolfriends is helping Atlanta Grade School Friends tell its story visually.

The ultimate aim is to restore historic Atlanta-Miller Grade School and create a modern community center with multiple spaces for meetings, events and perhaps even office space. We have begun a relationship with Google Maps, which has given us a new street view. We also have a Google Workspace with all the capabilities provided. We have developed a long-range plan; a campaign case statement; a sustainability plan; and we have hired highly regarded historic preservation experts at Architexas to guide the restoration. A new constituent data cloud-based platform has been selected and is being updated routinely. Data dating back years from hard copy spreadsheets and lists has been uploaded, and we view this as an essential security initiative.

In 2023, the historic site was removed from the “most endangered” Texas historic sites list by Preservation Texas, and Atlanta Grade School Friends received a 2023 Honor Award from Preservation Texas (nominated by me). Architexas, our restoration firm, has researched and is submitting a National Register for Historic Places marker application to the National Park Service.

Public presentations about the scope of our activities have been sought and given. For me, Atlanta Grade School Friends is another example of my “polishing the diamond” concept for nonprofits. So often, truly worthy nonprofit organizations simply need a little “polish” to shine in the eyes of potential partners and donors.

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I enjoyed helping financial literacy nonprofit Rock The Street, Wall Street (based in Nashville, Tennessee and expanding in Texas and across continents), with its SXSW Edu Expo display in March. I did some work with the organization in 2020, but COVID kept us from moving forward very far in Texas. Things are looking up, though. If you have an interest in this financial literacy program for young women in high school, I am happy to connect you. To read a former blog post about the organization, follow this link.

2021

I was busy writing and teaching during 2021. See my Media Room for updates and links.

I also helped Bee Cave Arts Foundation lay the groundwork for an outdoor tech art festival, BuzzFest. Other projects included the installation of Qgiv online gift processing (and silent auction platform), cleaning-up MailChimp and preparing e-blasts (see the newsletter page), and cleaning-up a former GoDaddy platform. I also did some photo documentation and provided social media support via my own channels. This work was done part-time and as a volunteer, a combination of both.

During 2021, I wrapped-up my longtime volunteer work for Nonprofit Tech Club Austin. To read more, see my community and volunteer overview on Carolyn’s Nonprofit Blog. I was the lead volunteer organizer from 2016 through the end of 2021. Based on the strong club infrastructure I developed, the chapter became the TechSoup Connect Texas Chapter (fall 2021 – and today, it is called the TechSoup Connect Austin). Each year, I created a promotional video to thank our partners and guest speakers. See my YouTube channel @CarolynAppleton.

2020

During 2020, I worked part of part-time for two nonprofit organizations, focusing generally on grant research and writing, infrastructure improvements, and online communications. One of these is based in Nashville, Rock The Street, Wall Street. To read more from my perspective about this successful and innovative financial literacy program, follow the link to my post. To learn more about my work during 2020, see my Media Room.

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Following-up on my work last year with TechSoup on a nonprofit disaster preparation and recovery course for Hurricane Harvey-impacted regions of Texas, the curriculum team and TechSoup staff hosted a one-day workshop in Houston on February 13. The online course has been refined and is now available to the public. To see more Instagram photos from the event, follow this link to Carolyn’s Tumblr.

Thank you for your help in the workshop last Thursday in Houston! The participants, to my observation, were able to get useful information and network with each other as we hoped. They benefited a lot from the insights that you shared about disaster planning and recovery. 

It was a great pleasure to work with you all on the CDP Disaster Preparedness project. Thanks to all your input and contribution, we were able to create the online course track and host the live workshop to help the Gulf Coast nonprofit organizations get better prepared for future emergencies, and as a result, become able to serve more people in need on those special occasions. That was a big achievement together during the past year! Your expertise and dedication are genuinely appreciated.

We wish you all the best moving forward, and hope our paths cross again in the future!

Thanks, Shuya Xu and the TS Courses team