Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Tragic Windfall?

Is there such a thing? Or just an oxymoron? I’m thinking about the first Trump budget. Here is a ‘plan’ that would rip to shreds our social safety net; our commitment to affordable, accessible health care; and our protection of the environment, food safety and much more that we expect from government. While enlarging tax […]

Learn More May 25, 2017

No One Wants More Email

That’s just one of the basic premises of our new book Start Over explores. The problem with getting the manuscript off to the publisher is that new research findings keep coming in. So, another chapter or two have to be re-written. Let me explain. In preparing my earlier book, Retention Fundraising: the art and science of keeping your donors […]

Learn More May 24, 2017

One In Five Of You Will Leave

I’m thinking about this recent article in NonProfitPRO — Does the Nonprofit Industry Have an Employment Problem? — by Tracy Vanderneck. Tracy cites two reports, one a cross-industry study and one focused on nonprofits, which converge on the exact same number regarding average annual employee turn over. It appears that nonprofits hold onto staff at […]

Learn More May 23, 2017

How To Organize For Miracles

“Craver, it’s perfectly fine to believe in miracles, but let me tell you, it sure helps to organize for them.” With those words my first fundraising mentor left me with an indelible understanding that while great things can and do happen, the probability of success increases markedly with careful and meticulous planning. Which brings me to […]

Learn More May 22, 2017

Who’s Using Social Media?

Roger has laid some heavy-duty reading on the table this week with his posts here and here on sustainer programs. And those are just the Cliff Notes on the exhaustive Sustainers in Focus report prepared by Blackbaud, which you can download here. The Agitator can’t think of much that’s more critical to your fundraising success than building […]

Learn More May 19, 2017

The cost of costless communication

It costs money to send an extra person an extra mail piece. It costs no money to send an extra person an extra email. So it’s natural to get logorrhea online and have a default of sending more to more. But it turns out this does have a cost: $24,522. That’s the amount that the […]

Learn More May 18, 2017