Award-Winning Blog


Ring the Bell, Not Your Hands

In times like these, it’s easy—fashionable, even—to believe that doom is a foregone conclusion. That democracy is circling the drain. That artificial intelligence will eat our jobs, our meaning, our minds. That cruelty is ascendant and civic life has cracked. But despair is lazy. Worse—it’s contagious. It spreads faster than hope and sticks longer than […]

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The Thermofax Gospel of Recurring Giving

Let me tell you a story. It’s May 24, 1815. Some well-meaning folks in a fledgling nation decided they could collect money on a regular basis. For charity. Subscription-style. Recurring generosity. Monthly giving. They got it right two hundred and ten years ago. Now jump to the present day, where most nonprofit boards still stare […]

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Memorial Day 2025

MOURN.  REMEMBER.

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Fundraising Is a Mirror. What Are You Reflecting?

Look at the image sets. Clean desk or chaos corner? Friendly reminder above the sink or sarcastic passive-aggression? Still life fruit or wild abstraction? Window-gazing calm or crowd-surfing madness?  You have a clear favorite in each pair, no struggle, no committee meeting, just instant affinity. That’s personality at work. That’s traits in action. And that […]

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Engagement Isn’t What You Think It Is And It’s Probably Not What You’re Measuring

There was a time when “engagement” meant something. A donor was engaged if they cared, felt something, had made a psychological investment. Now? Engagement means…they opened your email or clicked a link or attended a virtual town hall while folding laundry.  We turned a mental state into a series of browser events.  And worse: we […]

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Segmentation: The Five Rules and One Big Red Flag

The only reason to segment your donors is because you think treating them differently will make you more money. But for that to work, your segmentation has to follow five must-have rules: People in the same segment are similar in ways that matter to giving. People in different segments are meaningfully different, again, in ways […]

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