Welcome to Asana for Nonprofits!

I’m thrilled you’ve made the decision to use Asana to advance your mission.

Why?

Because I experienced what it was like to build a global health nonprofit using Asana and believed so much in its power, I joined Asana as Nonprofits Growth & Partnerships Lead to support others like you to do the same.

My story: Building a nonprofit with Asana in 2011

On the final evening of 2011, I watched my inbox with anticipation, hoping Possible—the nonprofit I was leading—would receive unexpected end-of-year donations. To my surprise, in came a grant from Good Ventures (co-founded by Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz) based on a recommendation from GiveWell.

Because of that grant, I became aware of Dustin’s vision to build Asana to help humanity thrive by enabling the world's teams to work together effortlessly.

I started using a very early version of Asana as a personal task list. As our team grew, I used it as an onboarding checklist for every new hire. Then to organize and run meetings. Then as a tool to plan our fundraising events. Over time, it became the single source of truth for everything we did, from setting and communicating our organization's OKRs (objectives and key results) to tracking complex patient care with crowdfunding partners.

“Asana played a huge role in helping us communicate and collaborate 75% faster with teams on the ground immediately after the earthquake in Pakistan so we could respond to as many people as possible.”

— Yusra Rizwan,  Human Resources Manager,

When I left my role in 2018, 100% of our team members from NYC to rural Nepal were using Asana to advance our mission. And in my transition letter to my Board, I shared that introducing and building Asana as our core work management tool was one of the best decisions I made as a CEO.

Your story: How to build your nonprofit with Asana for Nonprofits today

I want you to have a similar experience with Asana. The good news is a lot has changed since 2011, and we’ve custom-built Asana for Nonprofits to make advancing your mission even easier.

If I was leading a nonprofit today, here’s my step-by-step guide on how I’d use our resources to do more for the people you serve.

1. Build a small team of champions and get up to speed with our super quick Asana Basics.

     Tip: Don’t go it alone. Change requires a small team of champions. Good news: Asana Basics only takes 15 minutes.

2. Define your “Why Asana” statement -- create a vision for Asana at your nonprofit.

     Tip: People love a vision with less email, better collaboration, and more time to do the real work serving others that they love!

3. Find the 3 most important processes in your organization and move them into Asana using the Asana Guide, The Asana for Nonprofit Community Forum Category, and Templates

     Tip: Processes that cause pain now and impact a lot of people are great places to start. Think about universal needs like meeting agendas and onboarding. You can find allies in the Community Forum and pre-made examples with project Templates. Our team built nonprofit specific templates designed to address the fundraising & grant tracking needs of any nonprofit organization.

4. Create small wins then sign up for a free call with Asana Advisors to get support and new ideas on how to expand Asana.

     Tip: Asana Advisors are Asana employees that volunteer 1 hour of their time to give you 1:1 attention and support.

5. Share nonprofit success stories with more teammates who you want to bring on to Asana.

     Tip: Build that excitement by showing your team what is possible.

“Before we started using Asana we were limited to helping around 10,000 youth in foster care per year. Asana helped us grow that number to more than 90,000 kids annually!”

— Danny Mendoza,  Founder of

6. Use Live Trainings to help your whole team understand and use Asana quickly.

     Tip: You want to show that as more people use Asana, you get even greater impact. Trainings are the best way to reach large numbers of people.

7. Register for an in-person workshop when the Asana Together World Tour comes to your city.

     Tip: There's no better way to learn than by doing. Attend a free workshop training with your team, and you'll walk away with tips you can use right away!

8. Sustain success by sharing stories of how Asana is helping advance your mission.

     Tip: You can get everyone in an “all staff” project and use it as a place to sustain momentum by sharing announcements and celebrating milestones.

“Asana has changed our perspective on project management: Rather than taking one step at a time, with Asana we have a bird’s-eye view of the project and can tangibly visualize the end goal.”

— Sarah Fonseca,  Manager of Communications,

I can’t wait to see all that you’ll accomplish with these Asana for Nonprofits resources. And please know this is just the start. We will continue to build out resources designed specifically for the challenges you face.

When I was a nonprofit CEO, I volunteered time at conferences and on airport phone calls to help peers implement Asana in their teams. It’s telling that I find myself doing the same thing in this role at Asana. Who knows, maybe we will get to connect over an Advisor call soon.

Thank you for choosing Asana, and thank you for the work you do.

Mark Arnoldy,
Nonprofits Growth & Partnerships Lead