Award Winning Blog - Agitator

How Effective Is Our Fundraising?

The latest stats from Giving USA might be cause for smug satisfaction. Overall giving in the U.S. reached record highs at $373.25 billion in 2015, up 4.1% from the previous year. This amount covers giving from US-based individuals and institutions to US-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations. [I come from the advocacy world and would note that […]

Learn More June 15, 2016

Update On Online Giving

In partnership with Network for Good, the Chronicle of Philanthropy provides a ‘data dashboard’ updated monthly that reports trends in online giving. The dashboard looks only at flows through the Network for Good platform, but that’s nearly two million donations over a rolling year to 31,295 nonprofits. So, not a bad picture of what’s happening […]

Learn More June 14, 2016

Starting Over #1: Where Do We Go From Here?

In announcing this Agitator Starting Over series I posed the fundamental question that will guide this exploration: How would you build a growing, sustainable nonprofit from scratch in today’s fast-changing and challenging environment? Tom and I are thrilled with the outpouring of suggestions and recommendations for the series, and specific proposals that might brighten the […]

Learn More June 13, 2016

On Ignoring Donors Needs and Preferences

In working on the Starting Over series that we’ll launch next week I’ve been fretting, worrying and, frankly damn near exploding with frustration. So please permit me this rant. There’s no question that virtually everyone has an excuse for not changing. Frankly I blame most of this resistance to the idiocy of stingy boards and […]

Learn More June 10, 2016

Starting Over … Tom’s Take

Yesterday Roger previewed a new Agitator series with the theme, Starting Over. To Roger, ‘starting over’ means going back to and addressing the most fundamental questions: What does our donor want? Are we delivering it? Why are they leaving? As Roger sees it (watch for his rant on this tomorrow), if you aren’t focused on those […]

Learn More June 9, 2016

Starting Over

Not knowing what you’re doing is more and more acceptable in this complex and fast changing world we work in. But pretending and preaching that you know what you’re doing is dangerous. For you. For your organization. For your clients. For the future of our sector. I’m increasingly convinced that making bold predictions, spread-sheeting three […]

Learn More June 8, 2016