No matter how straightforward your nonprofit’s mission is, the work behind it is complex. To power your operations, you need to recruit and retain a strong team of staff and volunteers. To ensure your long-term success, you need to maintain a confident and informed board of directors. To raise enough funds to sustain your programs and services, you need to convince your community that your cause is worthy of support.

By implementing a learning management system (LMS), you can facilitate all of these efforts and centralize training and education into one platform. Let’s explore the top ways your nonprofit can use an LMS to advance its mission.

1. Train Staff and Volunteers

Every day, your staff and volunteers work hard to keep your organization’s doors open—whether they’re crafting marketing materials, planning events, or compiling financial reports. By providing these dedicated individuals with continuous learning opportunities, you allow them to develop the skills and competencies they need to excel in their roles.

With an LMS, your nonprofit can:

• Design a structured onboarding process. Produce welcome videos and introductory courses that acquaint new employees and volunteers with your organization’s mission, values, history, and programs. These courses can be self-paced so that team members can complete them at their preferred learning speed.
• Provide role-specific training. By creating learning paths tailored to specific roles, you can set employees and volunteers up for success in managing their individual responsibilities. For example, you might enroll managers in training courses that cover topics such as delegation and change management.
• Construct a collaborative learning environment. Help new employees and volunteers build connections within your nonprofit from day one. Use discussion boards and forums on your LMS to encourage team members to interact and reflect on what they’re learning.

Bonus tip: Since your staff and volunteers have differing learning preferences, offer a variety of content types and formats to engage them. For example, one employee might appreciate podcasts since they enjoy auditory, self-paced learning. Another employee might be more excited to attend a virtual nonprofit conference because they love networking.

2. Educate Board Members

A strong nonprofit board steers your organization toward success and champions your mission across everything you do. However, nonprofit leaders have previously rated their board’s performance in understanding their responsibilities, the context in which the organization is working, and legislative issues as a C or C+.

To better equip your board members to fulfill their fiduciary, legal, and ethical duties, your nonprofit can use an LMS to:

• Set up a consistent orientation process. Create educational modules that cover the basics of your organization in a logical sequence. Go over areas such as your mission, board expectations, current programs, and impact.
• Improve board financial literacy. Brief board members on basic topics, including budgeting, audit preparation, and financial reporting. Incorporate your nonprofit’s real financial data into the training to allow your board to practice analyzing it.
• Clarify compliance requirements. Maintaining compliance with IRS regulations, reporting requirements, and grant conditions can seem complicated to less experienced board members. Provide courses with relevant guidelines and real case studies for learners to reference anytime.
• Engage board members in fundraising. According to Double the Donation’s rundown on recent nonprofit trends, major donor fundraising is more important than ever before. Make it easy for board members to participate in fundraising by offering courses on identifying prospects within their network, building donor relationships, and communicating compelling stories.

Bonus tip: Some financial and legal topics may seem dull or daunting to board members. Make the learning process more appealing by adding interactive quizzes that reinforce their knowledge and badges that reward their hard work.

3. Spread Community Awareness

An LMS can enhance your nonprofit’s marketing strategy by providing more opportunities for people to interact with your cause. Education is the first step to long-term engagement with your mission. The more people understand how important your work is, the more likely they are to donate and spread the word to others.

With an LMS, your nonprofit can:

• Raise more. Boost your fundraising results by encouraging more people to engage with your cause. Produce courses relevant to your mission and make them available to your community for free. For example, a health nonprofit could teach its audience about preventative care and stress management. A disaster relief organization might host classes on how families can create emergency kits and evacuation plans.
• Boost advocacy. Empower supporters to make their voices heard on relevant issues. Create training modules that prepare advocates for contacting legislators and equip them with strong storytelling skills. Launch webinars that explore how local policy changes affect your community.
• Form local partnerships. Look for opportunities to partner with local schools, businesses, and other organizations to design co-branded education programs for the community. For example, a literacy-focused nonprofit could work with local libraries to develop courses that families and their children can enroll in to promote early childhood reading.

Bonus tip: Focus on accessibility so anyone can engage with your learning content. For example, provide text transcripts alongside videos, ensure your PDFs are compatible with screen readers, and make it easy for users to navigate your courses using only a keyboard. Look for an LMS that supports multiple languages to reach a more diverse audience.

4. Fulfill Your Mission

For many nonprofits, creating meaningful change within their community starts with education. Whether you’re helping beneficiaries lead better lives or address urgent needs in your area, an LMS can facilitate how you run your programs and services.

For example:

• A nonprofit dedicated to bridging the digital divide can offer accessible courses to low-income communities that cover basic computer skills and online safety practices.
• A nonprofit that helps people who were formerly incarcerated find employment can host virtual mock interviews, resume workshops, and mentorship sessions.
• A nonprofit working to end homelessness can offer courses on personal finance, housing applications, and job searching to people experiencing homelessness.
• A nonprofit that champions art and culture in the community can organize online workshops led by artists and video tutorials that people can follow.

Bonus tip: When researching LMS options, check whether the platform integrates with your existing software. For example, a Salesforce LMS integration makes it easy for your team to manage and adjust your learning program based on the data stored in your Salesforce system. The more connected your tools are, the better visibility you have into how your educational offerings are moving your mission forward.

---

As you create learning opportunities for your nonprofit’s community, look for ways to improve engagement over time. TopClass recommends using your LMS’s reporting tools to track learner progress, course hours, and test results to gain more insights into your learning program. Use this data, combined with learner feedback, to guide your strategy and build a better experience going forward.