Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Trivial Pursuit In Fundraising

Over and over Tom and I receive emails and comments claiming there just isn’t enough time or staff resources required to make some of the basic changes we suggest, or engage in much innovation. Yet, anyone who’s spent time with most nonprofits knows that’s simply an excuse without much truth to it. Tom’s post yesterday, […]

Learn More October 15, 2014

Size Doesn’t Matter

Yesterday I chided Agitator readers a bit on the retention issue, suggesting nonprofits were showing too little interest in their fleeing donors. I was rewarded (and so, I suspect, were Bloomerang and Pamela Grow!!) by the Comment from Ann Kensek at The Counseling Service of of Addison County in Vermont (CSAC-VT). Clearly, CSAC-VT is not […]

Learn More October 14, 2014

Cassandra, Chicken Little and Pollyanna

Cassandra says the end is here, can’t you see?! Chicken Little says the sky is falling … it just hit us on the head. Pollyanna says hogwash, everything is fine and will only get better. Most fundraisers appear to be Pollyanna’s. I’m inferring that from the pattern I see in Agitator reader comments to the […]

Learn More October 13, 2014

282 Years Of Annual Giving

Few acts in life are more memorable than tossing a coin into the Trevi Fountain in Rome. I don’t know whether it’s the romance the act promises — the mythical assurance that your coin toss guarantees you a return to Rome — or just the spraying beauty of all that wet Travertine marble chiseled in […]

Learn More October 10, 2014

Donor Sapiens … Extinct Or A Myth?

I just read some great fundraising observations by Francesco Ambrogetti, writing in 101Fundraising. He talks about the extinction of ‘donor sapiens’. Francesco notes that most fundraisers, when they first contemplate what it might take to attract a new donor, seem properly aware that they need to appeal to the emotions. He observes that at that […]

Learn More October 9, 2014

The Trillion Dollar Fundraising Time Bomb

This is an alert for those rare and very adept boards, CEOs and fundraisers who seriously plan beyond the next 36 months. You’re in BIG TROUBLE. Why? Student loans. The smoke alarm hasn’t yet gone off. And it probably won’t for some time. But for those fundraisers who genuinely care about the long-term future, as […]

Learn More October 8, 2014