Patrice’s Nonprofit Holiday Gift List
The nonprofit sector runs on passion, grit, and a concerning amount of caffeine. This holiday season, skip the generic gifts and give your nonprofit loved one something that actually supports their work and wellbeing. Here is my highly curated, definitely opinionated, made-with-love gift guide for the people doing the work that holds our communities together.
Vu Le
For the nonprofit human who has ever screamed into the void while completing a budget narrative: this book is your permission slip to believe a saner sector is possible. Vu names what we’re all living and pushes us toward something better.
Why I like it:
Vu Le does what the rest of us mention in group chats. He articulates the everyday absurdities of this sector with clarity, humor, and righteous fire. It’s validating. It’s cathartic. It’s a new way of social good. It’s the nonprofit holiday self-care we have been looking for this year.
Krista Kurlinkus
The training, community, and tools that make grant writing feel less like wizardry and more like skill-building. The AI Grant Hub is built by someone who actually understands grants, writing, and ethics.
Why I like it:
The GWME Team is one of the few companies designing AI in grant work responsibly and competently. They know writing, they know grants, and they built a tool that amplifies skill instead of shortcuts. This is the future of grant writing done right.
Your nonprofit best friend in prospect research. It pulls in the right funders, organizes deadlines, and keeps your team from drowning in spreadsheets.
Why I like it:
Instrumentl somehow manages to be both a tech platform and a deeply human company. Their customer service is real and responsive. Cool things happen both when we give feedback and when we don’t realize we need to. In a sector crowded with shiny tools, Instrumentl is noticeably built with care.
Danielle Coke
Beautiful, bold illustrations that infuse justice, joy, and community into every corner of your desk, office, or Zoom backdrop. Nonprofit soul food.
Why I like it:
This art holds truth and hope in the same breath. The visual storytelling invites people in, gently but powerfully. Every nonprofit workspace should have a piece of this grounding wisdom on display (it is one of our favorite gifts to send).
Fielding Jezreel
A brilliantly built tool that demystifies federal funding and helps organizations/consultants understand the dollars behind the jargon and the process.
Why I like it:
This accelerator takes the sprawling chaos of federal grants and turns it into something navigable, strategic, and actually useful. It’s one of the smartest tools out there for anyone wanting to engage with public dollars.
A values-driven community of nonprofit consultants who share insights, opportunities, learning, and collective wisdom. It’s a hub for growth and grounded professional connections.
Why I like it:
This community keeps evolving in all the right ways. It’s principled and genuinely collaborative. Plenty of space for learning, leading, and lifting one another up.
Meena Das
Training, newsletters, and resources that bring humanity, clarity, and cultural responsiveness to the world of data.
Why I like it:
Meena Das takes topics people struggle to act on confidently, like data, evaluation, and equity, and makes them accessible, ethical, and beautifully human. Her work reshapes how nonprofits think about information, people, and power.
Deepa Iyer
A reflective, grounding guide that helps individuals and organizations understand their role in social change.
Why I like it:
This framework literally shows up in my brain daily. I talk about it weekly. The workbook is the compass every changemaker needs: clear, thoughtful, and designed to help us live our roles with intention.
A design tool that makes every nonprofit look like they have a full creative team (even if it’s just one person and a dream).
Why I like it:
The Pro version is free for nonprofits, and Canva itself is a company that genuinely invests in doing good. It’s one of the easiest, most joyful tools to bring storytelling, branding, and communication to life.
Bethany Snyder
A go-to resource for nonprofits ready to activate their advocacy muscles. From practical tools to confidence-boosting training, Snyder Strategies helps organizations show up powerfully in policy and civic spaces.
Why I like it:
Because far too few nonprofit professionals are taught anything about advocacy, even though it’s essential to dismantling the systems causing the very problems we’re funded to address. Bethany Snyder makes advocacy accessible, actionable, and top-of-mind. We need more than Band-Aids. Her work helps us build real change.
A delightfully cathartic and wildly accurate LinkedIn space where nonprofit professionals name, share, and unpack the funder behaviors that make this sector unnecessarily hard. It’s honest, hilarious (though sometimes anger-inducing), and deeply needed.
Why I like it:
If you haven’t seen Crappy Funding Practices on LinkedIn, you are missing one of the few places where the sector collectively vents, learns, and pushes for better philanthropic norms. It sparks lively dialogue, encourages accountability, and best of all, it’s free.
Every item on this list is something I personally use, love, or rely on to make sense of nonprofit life. None of this is sponsored. Just my honest, wholehearted recommendations for the people doing the work that matters most. If you want more goodies like this, our resource guide is always growing, and you can sign up for it on our website.
Wishing you a season of rest, warmth, and the kind of joy that doesn’t require a strategic plan or a grant cycle. May your year-end reporting be light, your funders be generous, and your inbox magically empty itself at least once. Here’s to taking care of ourselves and each other as we keep doing the work that keeps our communities whole. Happy Holidays from A Village for Good.