Award-Winning Blog


Bursting the Organization-Centric Bubble

If you still believe—or even worse, tout the fact– that your organization is the end-all and be-all this will burst your organization-centric bubble. A study just released by The Blackbaud Institute titled Vital Signs: Monitoring Giving Patterns in the Donor Marketplace concludes that… “…American donors are more valuable to American nonprofit organizations than the organizations […]

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The Joyful, Fighting Spirit Of Tom Mathews

Too often we focus on the technical tactics of fundraising, spending far too little time on the intangible, but all-important, heart and soul that form the foundation of all causes and movements. In a world too invested in maintaining silence, the hero’s words of truth ring out like a pistol shot. Last week our world […]

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DonorVoice House of Horrors 1: A Donor’s Lament

by Edgar Allan Poe’s less-talented brother Elwood Once upon a midday happy, I awoke from noontime nappy Rousing from my squishy armchair as I had begun to snore Suddenly I heard a binging, a soft electronic dinging As if a bell had been ringing, ringing from my email store “Tis some email” lo I muttered, […]

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Don’t let bad donor intelligence jam you up

You may have heard the article of faith that donor surveys only give you misleading information. That statement is half right: bad donor surveys are bad. But, as you make have guessed, good surveys are not only good but essential. But first, you must get past the jam trap. (This can involve complex technical names […]

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Constructing a donor identity: an NRA case study

Who people are is an integral part of why they give. Your most loyal donors are the ones who wouldn’t dream of leaving, because being a member/supporter/donor to you is a part of who they are. Some of these are simple. Disease charities can segment by whether the disease directly impacted the donor. For animal […]

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The Perfect E-Commerce Page

The most basic attribute of good fundraising webpages is simplicity — don’t ask for anything extraneous to ‘closing the sale’, pre-populate donor information when available, require as few clicks as possible. Make it easy, easy, easy. I figure a good online fundraiser could probably come up with a list of 10 or a dozen ‘must […]

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