Award Winning Blog - Agitator

When ‘Branding’ Rears Its Ugly Head

Sooner or later someone in your organization, totally devoid of fundraising knowledge (likely the CEO, a board member or the spouse of one) is going to come up with the brilliant idea of changing your organization’s name. Or your logo. Or your tagline. Or your graphics and copy style. Heaven help you. Because if they […]

Learn More June 25, 2014

Play It Again, Sam

In his recent Fundraising Success post, premiere copywriter Willis Turner talks about repetition. As in, when it your fundraising package works, use it again. And again. Until it fails. As he puts it: “…don’t be afraid of repetition unless and until it proves itself a bad idea for your particular organization. There’s too much to […]

Learn More June 24, 2014

Donor Nation USA

I was browsing the latest report from Giving USA on the size of the giving sector in America in 2013. The overall giving total — $335 billion — is big. But just how big is that … what would be a good comparative measure? What about comparative national budgets? If you take ‘just’ individual donations […]

Learn More June 23, 2014

10 Tips For Successful Donor Testimonials

Kim Wallace, co-author of the fascinating Why People Don’t Buy Things, just posted a terrific guide to making and using Donor Testimonials. Not only does Kim explain why donor testimonials are so effective, he also illustrates his points on producing outstanding testimonials with this video collection of the real things. Here are Kim’s 10 tips […]

Learn More June 20, 2014

Poor Research & Undocumented Best Practices — Barriers To Growth, Part 6

You’d think a $300 billion industry like ours would have empirically based standards and practices readily available and accessible to all. After all, most sectors — ranging from apple growers to doctors and hospitals, and even zoos — have them. Fundraising doesn’t. What we do have is mass of accumulated tribal wisdom, often conflicting, seldom […]

Learn More June 19, 2014

Tsk…Tsk, Tut…Tut

No doubt Monday’s news that Greenpeace suffered a $5.2 million loss on an ill-timed bet in the currency market will unleash a tsunami of tsk-tsking and tut-tutting in our sector. The Associated Press reported that an employee in the finance department at Greenpeace International headquarters in Amsterdam bet the euro would not strengthen against other […]

Learn More June 18, 2014