Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Your Ultimate Final, Penultimate Final, Last Final Renewal Notice. Absolutely. We’re Serious.

In Are You Beggar or a Fundraiser, Tom featured an email appeal from the Democratic Congressional Campaign (DCCC) that exuded the distinct odor of desperation. ‘Desperate’-sounding because the copy — screaming ‘FINAL NOTICE’ in stark black and red type — reminded the donor that “you have 8 missed messages to renew your Democratic membership.” Well, Tom, […]

Learn More March 1, 2017

2016 Giving Trends: The Warning Signs

The Blackbaud Insitute for Philanthropic Impact has released its Fifth Annual Charitable Giving Report that you can download here. It’s an attractive, interesting read and a chance to do some benchmarking comparison with your own results. It also contains the evidence that should cause us all to continue our professional soul searching and quest to do […]

Learn More February 28, 2017

Roger’s Blood Pressure

For months now, I’ve been sensing the steady rise in Roger’s blood pressure. I’ve watched two things in particular get him agitated … First, the glacier-like pace (and that’s me being charitable) with which fundraisers have responded to declining donor retention rates. And second, not unrelated, the apparent diffidence (again, I’m being charitable in my choice of […]

Learn More February 27, 2017

Our Job Is to Piss You Off

And get you thinking. Apparently we’re succeeding, judging from the thoughtful comment by Tom Ahern in response to my post on feedback. Tom takes umbrage with my snarky and no doubt intemperate comments on what I described as somewhat superficial approaches to ‘donor centricity’, whatever that is. First, let me apologize for any language that came […]

Learn More February 24, 2017

Donor Centricity — The Missing Ingredient

No matter how much you try, you really can’ t call yourself ‘donor centric’ unless you’re actively seeking donor feedback. Yesterday I spent some fabulous hours with 30+ organizations separating the wheat from the chaff on what most of the trade — without real understanding and in vacuous terms — calls ‘donor centricity’. These folks […]

Learn More February 23, 2017

Who Will Get The Money?

In her comment on Monday’s Agitator post, 40 Nonprofit Trends, Gayle Gifford made a provocative point, which I hope might stir up some debate … “The overwhelming majority of US public charities, those small and medium sized organizations, simply don’t have the funds to compete for talented fund development staff or new technology to keep […]

Learn More February 22, 2017