Award Winning Blog - Agitator

The Charity “Membership” Ruse

Imagine you signed up for an annual gym membership in January and paid with a check (or cash for the Mafioso readers). Now further imagine that you also signed up for the gym’s “healthy eating” monthly email. What does the term annual connote to you? What about membership? Would you expect to have the gym […]

Learn More December 4, 2015

On Looking A Gift Horse In The Mouth

It’s been quite a week for watching the philanthropic parade go by — featuring gifts in size from one extreme to another and given through the widest variety of methods and channels in history. From the birth of Baby Max Zuckerberg and her parents’ $45 billion gift in her honor to be used toward “improving […]

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Struggling To Make A Better World

When I last looked, the nonprofit sector seemed to be struggling mightily, but not terribly successfully, to make a better world. What’s a ‘better world’? I’d say one devoid of interpersonal violence of any kind and one at peace, not war, with nature. I could be content with that. So forgive me for being a bit bemused […]

Learn More December 3, 2015

Don’t Ask. Don’t Thank.

Tom and I spend lots of time and spill lots of digital ink over building donor relationships, the importance of retention and donor experience. So I was mighty pleased to see that our UK fundraising friend Matthew Sherrington has managed to distill a lot of what we’ve had to say into a single post. In […]

Learn More December 2, 2015

The Big Squeeze

The Big Squeeze has begun, fittingly with a December 1st ‘Giving Tuesday’. December is the month when all ‘good’ fundraisers try to squeeze every last bit of coin they can from current donors, using the most intensive, intrusive and organization-centric techniques possible. December has nothing whatsoever to do with building donor relationships. Rather it’s scorched earth […]

Learn More December 1, 2015

Loss Of A Man Of Skill And Decency

Austin Kiplinger, 97, a giant of the Washington, DC publishing, philanthropic and civic scene, died on November 20th. Others will note his life-long dedication to the advancement of civil rights … his tireless devotion to fundraising and support of the cultural scene in the Nation’s capital … and his enlightened, far-ahead-of-their-times practices where employees […]

Learn More November 30, 2015