Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Where to Find the Elusive Monthly Donor

As the one-time donor (dator unum) becomes an increasingly endangered species, organizations have correctly gone in search of recurring donors (dator magnus). In the past two years, sustaining gifts have gone from 20% to 30% of (median) organizational revenue. Much of the search for recurring donors has been centered on trying to get one-time donors, […]

Learn More August 5, 2019

Top Two Excuses for 2019 Income Shortfalls

We’re 7 months through the year. Those whose fiscal year ended June 30thare now preparing their year-end board reports. Those whose fiscal year finishes on December 31stare figuring out how to close whatever income gap is likely. About this time each summer I stick a Post-it note on the edge of my screen with what I […]

Learn More August 2, 2019

Seven New Updates to Seven New Issues: Free Webinars, White Papers and F2F Data

New free webinar: We had such a positive response to our webinar series in May and June we are starting back up. First up: Beyond A/B: Running Thousands of Tests at Once. Erica Best of No Kid Hungry and Steve Rudman of Concord Direct will join me to discuss the method behind No Kid Hungry’s […]

Learn More July 31, 2019

BRANDING: Who Polices the Brand Police?

If you missed Roger’s Friday post on brand, a recent study on brand found that fundraising spending has 87 times the impact on income as brand spend and the best organizations had brand as the servant to fundraising instead of vice versa. It’s not all bad news for brand folks, though. There are two areas […]

Learn More July 29, 2019

BRANDING: Help or Hindrance?

Sooner or later someone connected to your organization, totally devoid of fundraising knowledge (likely a board member or the spouse of one), is going to come back from their summer break with the ‘brilliant idea’– half-baked in the sun and sand—that your organization should be changing its name. Or your logo. Or your tagline. Or your graphics […]

Learn More July 26, 2019

Scarcity Is The New Cool

Last week Jeff Brooks, in his post How scarcity focuses your donors on your fundraising , noted the power of using “scarcity” in fundraising. He cites the “scarcity” that exists in matching gift funds where there’s only a certain amount of money available and only a finite amount of time to meet the match There’s […]

Learn More July 24, 2019