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Eating the Elephant – Tips for Updating Your ColoradoGives Profile Effectively and Efficiently


We are happy to introduce our new Online Giving Coordinator, Lisa Lujan. Lisa joins us after working in development at Firefly Autism, an organization featured on ColoradoGives.org. She brings a perspective from the other side of the fence as a nonprofit—helping us understand the needs of nonprofits even better.  —  Community First Foundation and the ColoradoGives Team

Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator
Updating a profile can seem like a daunting task, but here are just a few tips to help make the process easier in order for you to create a stellar ColoradoGives.org profile in a reasonable amount of time.

  1. Use the Profile Update Schedule (http://goo.gl/kV2S6) – A high level overview of ColoradoGives.org profiles, this document gives a summary of the most important aspects of your profile to update as well as a suggested timeline of when to update each section.
  2. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Rather than try to do the entire profile in one rushed day, split it up. Carve out a little time regularly. Whether that be an hour weekly or 15 minutes daily, eating your “elephant” one bite at a time will not only help you feel productive but also give you plenty of time to focus on the important aspects of your profile.
  3. Don’t let questions stop you from updating. You can email us anytime at COGives@communityfirstfoundation.org if you get stuck – in the meantime try working on the sections of the profile you don’t have questions about.
  4. Can’t get uninterrupted time at work to update your profile? Join us for one of our help sessions. These casual sessions allow you to come and stay as long as you need to, just be sure to RSVP.


Completing your profile will not only feel great and be an excellent resource for your donors, but it will also give you a template “case statement” that can be used for other things such as grant applications, meeting with prospective donors or creating materials for corporate sponsorships. Don’t forget that you can copy and paste your ColoradoGives.org profile into GuideStar for national exposure.

By Lisa Lujan, Online Giving Coordinator
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