Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Unsung Fundraising Heroes

I’m looking forward to speaking next week at the annual meeting of the Association of Advancement Services Professionals because I want to personally thank these unsung heroes. These are the pros who gather, organize, manage and disseminate the information that is the backbone of solid and effective fundraising. Key activities too often ignored or paid short […]

Learn More October 20, 2015

Shut Up And Listen

As reported in this NonProfit Times article, consultant Richard Brown offered this simple advice at a recent fundraising conference, in the context of major gift fundraising: “Just keep your mouth shut and your ears open.” He was cautioning about the tendency of fundraisers always to be in sales mode, with predictable talking points: You’ll be making […]

Learn More October 19, 2015

Monitoring Metrics For Your Nonprofit

When I received this alert — Monitoring Metrics for Your Nonprofit? Look at These 3 First — from Joanne Fritz, nonprofit orgs expert at About Money, I was keen to see which three she had flagged. Joanne is a savvy, reliable source of good advice and useful resources. But this time I was teased and […]

Learn More October 16, 2015

Fundraising By Stereotype: The Quick Path To No Revenue

Editors’ Note: Periodically we reference the wit and wisdom of Jeff Brooks over at FutureFundraisingNow and occasionally run a few snippets. Today we’re featuring an unabridged guest post by Jeff on the pitfalls of relying on myth and stereotype — sadly an all-too-common affliction with many fundraisers. Roger and Tom “How are we going to replace our dying donors?” […]

Learn More October 15, 2015

Love Those Donor Complaints

Yesterday Roger hamstered hammered away at retention, drawing upon Mark Phillips’ (Bluefrog) wonderful warm and fuzzy hamster parable. In support of Roger’s and Mark’s messages, here’s something more prosaic regarding just one aspect of hanging on to donors … dealing with complaints. In fact, treasuring them. Take this advice from the ‘customer’ world, offered in Four […]

Learn More October 14, 2015

Hamsters And Fundraising

When it comes to holding on to donors most fundraisers, like fur-less hamsters, seem to treading their way to nowhere. As the Agitator noted last week in our post on the 2015 Fundraising Effectiveness Project Report, just as in past years the number of new donors gained is surpassed by the number of existing donors lost (100 too […]

Learn More October 13, 2015