Award Winning Blog - Agitator

“Stop It. Fix It.”

A week from today The Giving Institute will release the 2015 Edition of Giving USA, the annual compendium of charitable giving trends and estimates. Remember, the data reported in Giving USA lags by one year. Thus the data in the ‘2014 Edition’ is that for 2013. And the data for the ‘2015 Edition’ will be for 2014. […]

Learn More June 8, 2015

Profoundly Simple: A Plan For Every Donor

This past week, fundraising creative maven Jeff Brooks, who The Agitator greatly admires, has been rubbing it in … reminding us each day that he’s on vacation! OK, we’ll give Jeff the benefit of the doubt and assume he deserves his week off (or is it a month, Jeff?), while you, Roger and I slave […]

Learn More June 5, 2015

From Shopping Clubs To Monthly Giving

We’re creatures of habit. Once we pick up a behavior pattern, we tend to stick with it. So it’s good news for fundraisers that consumers are flocking to subscription media services and buyers’ clubs. The consumer trend is described in this MediaPost article — Sign Me Up: Stoking The Subscription Economy. What’s reported is that […]

Learn More June 4, 2015

Routine vs. WOW!

Unless you’re Caitlyn Jenner or Barack Obama, is this the way your day full of experiences generally goes? Routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, WOW! Routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, WOW! Routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, WOW! Routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine, routine … Good night! Three WOW’s and 35 routine’s. I’m not saying you lead a boring life. I’m just saying that each day you probably endure heaps of ‘average’ experiences. Average products, […]

Learn More June 3, 2015

Second Chance For Fundraisers

The floor surrounding my desk is covered with an array of folders containing chapters of material for a new book Kevin Schulman and I are working on. Tentatively titled Start Over: Building a growing, sustainable nonprofit from scratch in today’s fast-changing and challenging environment, the book aims to be a helpful guide to the vastly changed […]

Learn More June 2, 2015

Does Your Reputation Matter?

The Agitator has recently reported on the latest body blows to the reputation of the nonprofit/charity sector, specifically with respect to fundraising practices. One would think that attention to reputation would be of paramount concern to our sector, but there isn’t much sign that individual nonprofit organisations think about their reputation in a systematic way. […]

Learn More June 1, 2015