The TopClass Blog

Learning plays an essential role across all areas of your nonprofit. Your staff and volunteers must learn about your mission, procedures, and strategic goals to contribute toward your success. Your donors need to learn about your cause to understand why they should support it. The more learning you promote within and outside your organization, the better you engage your community and power your long-term impact.

However, people have varying preferences and needs when it comes to learning. With a learning management system (LMS) for nonprofits, you can create tailored educational experiences that support each individual’s learning goals. If your nonprofit is ready to transform its approach to learning and training, start by exploring these basics:

• What Is a Learning Management System (LMS)?

• What Are the Benefits of an LMS for Nonprofits?

• 7 Top Features You Need in a Nonprofit LMS

• How to Choose the Right LMS for Your Nonprofit

• Transform Learning at Your Nonprofit with TopClass LMS

The nonprofit sector is constantly shifting and innovating to meet changing community needs. By investing in an LMS, you ensure that your organization is equipped with the latest skills and tools to seize new opportunities, overcome challenges, and thrive in the long run.

What Is a Learning Management System (LMS)?

A learning management system, or LMS, is an online platform that makes it easy for organizations to design, manage, and track educational, training, and certification programs.

Your nonprofit can use an LMS to:

• Onboard and prepare volunteers. Introduce new volunteers to your organization with basic educational modules on your mission, values, and programs. Create custom courses for specific roles, such as leadership training for project coordinators, and track each volunteer’s progress to completion.

• Train and upskill staff members. 92% of nonprofit employees surveyed in Salesforce’s Digital Skills Index believe they lack the digital skills required to keep up with future workplace demands. Help your staff practice and advance their abilities with personalized learning journeys. Build a supportive online learning community through discussion forums and social sharing.

• Educate board members. 70% of nonprofits find it challenging to encourage board members to participate in fundraising, and 38% struggle to provide them with a fundamental understanding of fundraising. Empower your board members to take action with actionable courses on fundraising and governance.

• Promote community awareness. Bring more attention to your cause through public-access online courses. For example, an environmental conservation nonprofit might offer a class on sustainable living, while a mental health nonprofit might have classes on stress management and positive thinking.

• Carry out its mission. For instance, an organization promoting youth literacy could use an LMS to provide young students with online reading activities, such as interactive quizzes. A nonprofit that helps people who were formerly incarcerated find employment could share courses related to resume writing and interview preparation.

For example, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is a nonprofit that provides learning opportunities for chemical engineers worldwide. AIChE uses an LMS to offer a variety of safety courses, group training, webinars, and more to its members. Thanks to AIChE’s LMS, the organization is able to provide seamless learning experiences to its community members and track engagement to identify how to improve its offerings over time.

What Are the Benefits of an LMS for Nonprofits?

A nonprofit LMS can support a variety of goals, allowing your organization to:

• Earn more. Beyond keeping your staff up to date on the most effective fundraising trends and practices, you can use an LMS to create a membership-based learning program or provide certifications to the public for a fee. Doing so adds new revenue streams that your organization can rely on beyond donations.

• Reduce training costs. An LMS eliminates the need for in-person training and any associated travel costs, especially if your nonprofit has hybrid or remote teams. Plus, even when your number of learners expands, you can reuse the same learning materials without investing more resources into training.

• Build a sense of community. Turn learning into a social activity with conferences, discussion forums, badges, and leaderboards. Social sharing tools allow learners to recommend courses or activities to their peers, increasing engagement with your educational materials.

• Provide more accessible learning experiences. The top LMS platforms are intuitive and convenient to use, allowing learners to access your nonprofit’s offerings from anywhere at any time. Plus, some even support multiple languages, so learners have more flexibility in how they consume your information.

If your nonprofit has multiple locations or engages with multiple communities, an LMS consolidates all of your learning materials in one place for easy access. This centralization leads to more consistent yet personalized educational experiences.

7 Top Features You Need in a Nonprofit LMS

LMS options exist for all types of organizations, from associations to companies to nonprofits. While the online learning platform you choose will ultimately depend on your specific goals and needs, a leading LMS should come with these essential features:

1. Branded Learning Dashboard

A learning dashboard acts as a personal hub that each learner can use to:

• Explore relevant courses

• Track learning progress

• View certifications, badges, and achievements

You should be able to customize the dashboard’s appearance with elements of your nonprofit’s branding—including your logo, colors, and typography—to create a consistent and professional visual experience for learners. 

2. Various Types of Content

Your LMS should accommodate a wide range of content types to appeal to varying learning preferences and boost engagement with your educational offerings. For example, you might want to create:

• Conferences

• Webinars

• Interactive videos

• Timed assessments

With an LMS that supports eLearning standards such as SCORM and AICC, you can import pre-built courses and ensure that your educational materials are viable across devices and platforms.

3. Collaborative Learning

You know the importance of community building to your nonprofit, so look for an LMS that helps you strengthen connections around your mission. You should be able to facilitate collaborative learning through:

• Discussion forums

• Cohort-based classes

• Digital badges

• Leaderboards

You can even create a mentorship program by pairing learners with more experienced members or volunteers of your organization in one-on-one discussion sessions.

4. Secure Payment Processing

If your nonprofit plans to earn additional revenue through learning opportunities and certification programs, consider each platform’s payment processing capabilities. The top LMS for nonprofits should support:

• Multiple currencies

• Discounts

• Coupons

• Promotional bundles

With a built-in shopping cart, learners can make purchases directly through the platform and jump straight into your content without leaving the website.

5. Assessment Tools

Assessments allow you to measure how well each learner has understood and retained the material in a course or certification path. You should be able to include various types of questions to determine whether learners have achieved their learning objectives, including:

• True/false

• Multiple choice

• Free-form

• Fill in the blank

Look for opportunities to incorporate mini-assessments at the beginning and throughout your courses. Doing so provides a clearer picture of each learner’s progress and helps you identify any learning gaps that you need to address.

6. Integrations

Look for a nonprofit LMS that integrates with your existing tools to create a seamless experience for both your learning program administrators and learners. For example, check for integration capabilities with:

• Your CRM, such as Salesforce

• Video conferencing platforms, including Zoom

• Credit card payment processors, such as Stripe

• Collaboration software, like Microsoft Teams

By integrating your nonprofit’s online learning platform with your CRM, you can automatically populate your database with information about your courses and learners, reducing manual data entry.

7. Advanced Reporting

As you continue to provide learning opportunities to your nonprofit’s community, you’ll want to answer questions such as, “How engaging are our learning courses?” and “How can we improve our courses to provide a better learning experience?” Your LMS should provide insights into these questions by tracking and analyzing data such as:

• Learner progress

• Credit hours

• Test results

• Purchases

Some LMS for nonprofits allow you to query any data stored on the platform in automatically generated reports, so you can zero in on the exact information you need.

How to Choose the Right LMS for Your Nonprofit

Now that you understand how an LMS can benefit your nonprofit and the key features you should seek, it’s time to search for the right solution for your organization. Use these steps to guide your decision-making:

1. Identify your needs.

Remember, there are many ways your nonprofit can use an LMS, from onboarding volunteers to educating donors and other community members. Determine your learning or training objectives and invite input from departments such as:

• IT

• HR

• Marketing

• Accounting

Then, set a clear budget to inform your LMS research. While there are open-source learning solutions with no license costs, note that these come with no annual support and require reliance on either internal IT resources or an external consultant to implement. While LMS platforms purpose-built for nonprofits do charge license fees, they provide expert support, maintenance, and updates that you can continuously count on from year to year.

2. Research LMS options for nonprofits.

After clarifying your priorities and budget, start compiling a list of potential LMS options for your nonprofit. Explore resources such as:

• Software review sites, including Capterra and G2

• Individual nonprofit LMS websites

• Nonprofit consultants with an in-depth understanding of LMS providers

Explore user reviews and case studies to understand each platform’s strengths and shortcomings. Consider reaching out to peers at other nonprofits to see if they have LMS recommendations based on their personal experiences.

3. Request demos.

Narrow your list down to a few top picks and request demos to learn more about each LMS. Prepare specific questions for each vendor, from specific integration capabilities to how certain features work. Take this opportunity to assess the platform’s ease of use and the level of support and training provided.

Ask the vendor to send a demo recording that you can re-watch with your decision-making team. Compare LMS platforms side by side to decide which is the best fit for your nonprofit’s needs and budget. If paying upfront license fees is challenging for your organization, check if the vendor has alternative pricing models, such as “pay as you go” or “per course enrollment,” that provide more flexibility for your budget.

Transform Learning at Your Nonprofit with TopClass LMS

No matter your nonprofit’s goals, TopClass LMS has the tools to help you deliver top-notch learning experiences to your entire community. As an award-winning learning platform, TopClass has continually improved over nearly 30 years to enhance education, facilitate collaborative learning, and open up new revenue streams for organizations like yours.

Organizations in 23 countries worldwide use TopClass to:

• Assemble detailed course catalogs with filter and search options.

• Sell training courses and certification programs.

• Configure and manage certifications, digital badges, and micro-credentials.

• Build an online community through discussion forums and social sharing.

• Generate custom, advanced reports to improve their educational programs. 

With TopClass LMS, organizations have experienced a 64% increase in revenue and a 90% decrease in support calls. If your nonprofit is ready to implement a streamlined, accessible, and engaging learning program, reach out to the TopClass team to learn more!

Wrapping Up: Creating Engaging Nonprofit Learning Experiences

Ultimately, your nonprofit’s LMS should make it easy for you to provide educational content that meets learners’ needs and fulfills your organization’s training objectives. Once your learning program is up and running, collect continuous feedback through polls and surveys to look for improvement opportunities. As long as you stay tuned into your learners' experiences and leverage the latest LMS tools, you’ll be able to enrich and engage them with ease.

If you’re interested in diving deeper into the world of learning management systems, check out these additional resources:

• The Ultimate Guide to LMS Selection & Implementation. Follow this guide to secure buy-in, select an LMS, prepare for implementation, and maximize your ROI.

• The Leading Association LMS to Elevate Learning | TopClass. If your nonprofit is an association that provides learning opportunities to members, explore the TopClass LMS features that will support your goals.

• What to Consider When Pricing Education Programs. Want to earn more revenue with your educational content? Learn how to set the right price in this guide.