Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Doing Versus Wishing

Wearing your fundraiser hat, what are you wishing for today? A 7-figure bequest? An executive director or CEO who values fundraising and likes to do it. A 2% response to your current acquisition mailing? A client who gets it? Any new client? A big fat 3-year foundation grant? A new development director? A record-high retention […]

Learn More September 30, 2014

Video Fundraising: Meet Chuna

Online video viewing steadily grows, with consumers increasing grouchy and disinterested when marketers don’t provide video support for their marketing messages. Do you think those expectations are any different with fundraising messages? I sure don’t. And I’ll provide some evidence in a moment. First, here’s a report on video viewing that measures mobile video viewing […]

Learn More September 29, 2014

The Idiocy Of ‘Testing’

One of the great barriers to growth is the idiocy of ‘testing’. Not because testing is bad, but because most fundraisers and their consultants don’t have the slightest idea what real testing is all about. When in doubt, “Let’s test it”. Consequently countless thousands/millions are spent and the result is vapid stargazing, at best. And […]

Learn More September 26, 2014

Stop the Direct Mail Testing

Is your direct mail testing on auto-pilot? Are you testing out of habit? We hear a lot of very smart, sophisticated direct marketers working for big non-profit brands tell us this. If you are one of them it is time to get off the merry-go-round and stop testing (with the current approach). These same marketers […]

Learn More September 25, 2014

No Fire, No Risk, No Challenge

Roger appears to be in an agitated — and agitating — mood. Recently he’s written When Founders Leave, which talks about the progressive loss of ‘fire in the belly’ when nonprofits, especially advocacy groups, are taken over by ‘hired gun’ executives and development directors. And a couple of weeks earlier, he wrote In Praise Of […]

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When Founders Leave

Make no mistake. Most fundraisers today have little fire in their bellies compared to the founders of their movements. That’s not their fault. But it is a reminder that movements and causes pretty quickly run out of steam when founders retire, die or otherwise leave the scene. That’s the principal reason most of today’s advocacy […]

Learn More September 24, 2014