Removing cost as a barrier to nonprofit training 

At Candid, we recognize that nonprofit leaders and fundraising professionals, particularly those working at small or under-resourced organizations, need access to the nonprofit training and resources that equip them to do good. As Candid moves to more proactively promote equity in the broader social sector, we also continue to reflect on what our own role might be in supporting that effort. 

Equitable access begins at home 

Last year, Candid formed a new Equitable Access department to apply a long-term lens to addressing this question. The team was convened to ensure that more resources–including Candid’s–get into the hands of those who stand to benefit from them most.  

Our long-term focus will be to address these barriers in ways that move the needle on the proportion of funding and support going directly to organizations which are BIPOC-led (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), serve rural communities, and/or may be small or newly emerging. However, we also recognize there are immediate steps we can take to ensure that more individuals can access our tools and learning resources, regardless of their ability to pay.

Offering Candid’s trainings at no cost 

One of our team’s first major priorities was to make virtually all of Candid’s capacity-building trainings free as of this past January. Our aim is to give individuals the ability to focus more time and energy on applying new learnings to advance their mission-driven work, without needing to find budget to simply partake in nonprofit training and learning opportunities. 

Candid’s courses are led by our team of expert trainers who deliver high-quality content to equip participants with actionable takeaways and practical tools. We offer two to three virtual trainings per month, open to all for free, by simply registering on the Candid Learning website. Courses are not only offered in a “live,” real-time format. We also provide on-demand courses to accommodate different learning styles and give learners the opportunity to engage with our content on their own schedules.  

Candid’s training offerings provide detailed instruction to help you build skills in fundraising, grant writing, nonprofit management, and more, and they are designed to serve different levels of expertise. Some of our most highly attended classes include:

• Introduction to Finding Grants. Designed to help newcomers to the world of fundraising, this course explains what funders look for in grant-seeking nonprofits and offers best practices for how to successfully approach them for the first time. 
• Introduction to Proposal Writing. This course provides a step-by-step overview of how to write a project proposal by breaking down its basic elements and offers guidance on how to follow up with funders, regardless of their response to your proposal. 
• Creating a Sound Proposal Budget. Available on-demand, this popular course supplies guidance on how to tackle proposal budgets, including how to allocate time for staff working across multiple projects, when and how to account for indirect expenses, and so much more.

The above Candid trainings are only a sampling of the many learning experiences we offer; we are constantly adding to our course calendar to provide new and valuable opportunities. 

Our work is just beginning 

In addition to making nearly all of Candid’s trainings free, we created a program called Go for the Gold, which offers small nonprofit organizations free access to Foundation Directory when they earn a Gold Seal of Transparency. Candid is also encouraging nonprofits to share their organizational leadership’s demographic makeup, so that funders who center equity in their grantmaking can more easily discover organizations that align with that strategy. 

We felt it was important to launch these efforts now as early steps towards making good on our commitment to promote more equitable practices across our sector. Still, we know that our work is just beginning. We also recognize that no solution will be perfect, so our team will be adopting a nimble, iterative approach to realize our ultimate goal: Developing high-impact solutions that truly move the needle towards creating a more equitable future for the social sector.