Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Effective Writing For Small Nonprofits

Unfortunately, not every nonprofit can afford to hire accomplished copywriters and designers to prepare their fundraising messages. I wish everyone could, because there’s an enormous bank of know-how out there, and there’s no real substitute for it … fundraising copywriting and design is a craft. But the fact is, in many — if not most — […]

Learn More March 30, 2015

The Hidden Cost Of Complexity

Given a choice, the harder something is to use the less people will use it. The more difficult something is to read the fewer people will read it. Most organizations don’t bother measuring the difficulty donors have in using their online donate pages. Nor do they bother measuring the readability of what they write and […]

Learn More March 27, 2015

Greenpeace Reveals

You might recall that not long ago I buzzed excitedly about a recent campaign launched by Greenpeace. With a tantalising dollop of mystery, Greenpeace asked recipients of their email message to do an online assessment to see if they had what it takes to be a Greenpeace campaigner … maybe to be selected to join […]

Learn More March 26, 2015

To Go .ngo, .ong, Or Not

Last week the Chronicle of Philanthropy pointed out that beginning March 17th charities around the world are eligible to register for website addresses with the additional domains of .ngo and .ong. Agitator reader Greg Worley wrote asking us to weigh in with an Agitator opinion of whether or not adding these domains is worth it to […]

Learn More March 25, 2015

What’s In A Job Title?

We all know that job titles can be either very misleading, sometimes actually disguising — and often overstating — what the person really does with their time (‘Chief Executive’, for example), or on the other hand, helpfully precise (e.g., Production Manager, Direct Mail). To get a sense of the range of people who are reading The Agitator, […]

Learn More March 24, 2015

Be Happy. No Water!

What a difference a day or two makes. On Friday, I was greeted by several sources pointing out that it was World Happiness Day. And who other than the troubador of happiness Pharrell Williams was addressing the United Nations on the subject. There are a variety of ‘world happiness’ measures floating around. If you want […]

Learn More March 23, 2015