Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Laryngitis And Online Conversion

I spent all of my July 4th holiday nursing a case of laryngitis, brought on by a lingering head cold that defies all intervention. [Any tips?] Looking for a silver lining to my situation, I found two. First, I watched more of Wimbledon than ever before. But to appear productive to my spouse … Second, […]

Learn More July 7, 2015

Getting The First Gift

Although The Agitator harps incessantly on the importance of donor retention (after all our job is to alert readers to where the real money is), the challenge of acquisition continually simmers on the back burners of our minds. It jumped to the front burner of my brain on Friday while I was decompressing in preparation for […]

Learn More July 6, 2015

Day Off

It’s Independence Day weekend in the US; today’s the legal holiday. Roger’s off lighting fireworks. I’m engaged in that favorite American 4th of July past-time … watching Wimbledon. Our US fundraising colleagues have a nice three-day window in which to plan the rest of their summer vacations. And to reflect over a beer, wine or gin […]

Learn More July 3, 2015

The Little Engine That Could

We write a lot about the tactics and techniques of big organizations. After all, they have the money to spend on the fundraising advances that we report. But far too often we neglect results. Especially the results of the small, innovative groups. Enter a tiny Dutch enviro group that shook the world of climate change […]

Learn More July 2, 2015

Direct Mail Fights Back

What’s sexiest in your nonprofit these days? Who’s got the hot fundraising job? Email fundraising? Social media? Video? Mobile? Direct mail? Direct mail?! That’s so 20th century. But wait, direct mail is fighting back. Or at least, as reported in Direct Marketing, the (not disinterested) US Postal Service is. Advertising mail accounts for 31% of USPS […]

Learn More July 1, 2015

Donor Relations … A One Way Street?

A sure sign that not much of anything worthwhile is being done in the area of donor relationships is the growing presence of lots of buzzwords surrounding this subject. In reality, my guess is that more folks have married Kardashians than there are organizations that have become seriously engaged in building true relationships with donors. […]

Learn More June 30, 2015