Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Punishing Good Deeds

Too many organizations today continue to be guided by the burn and churn mindset reminiscent of the bad old days, when donors were viewed as readily expendable. Easily and cheaply replaced by inexpensive new donors drawn from a seemingly inexhaustible acquisition pool. Given the rising costs of acquisition and falling retention rates, it surprises me […]

Learn More February 26, 2014

Communication Versus Transaction

Last week I noted some figures that online fundraising accounted for 6.4% of all fundraising in the US in 2013, while the growth rate for online fundraising was 13.5%. And with some math jujitsu I projected that at that rate online fundraising might take 17 years to break the 50% of fundraising barrier. Blackbaud’s Steve […]

Learn More February 25, 2014

Monthly Giving eCourse

If Roger’s recent post, Fundraising Land Grab, didn’t motivate you to take a fresh look at your monthly giving or sustainer program (or worse, lack of such a program), I’m not sure what would. As he wrote: “If you care about retention … if you care about sustainability … significant net income and, eventually, massive […]

Learn More February 24, 2014

The Annoyance Of Meetings

Sometime back, in a post titled Fundraising Nonsense, I lamented the fact the biggest waste of nonprofit time is ‘the meeting’. George Smith, the late, great UK copywriter put it best: “I always used to say that meetings were what you were doing when you weren’t working. They remain the regular ceremonial of the client/supplier […]

Learn More February 21, 2014

New Era Begins In 17 Years

We all know, thanks to Blackbaud, that online fundraising accounted for 6.4% of all fundraising in the US in 2013. So the direct mail army that drives direct marketed individual giving sniffs at that puny percentage, and goes back to work flexing its muscles and pumping up the nonprofit sector. Meantime, however, the growth rate […]

Learn More February 20, 2014

Top 50 Inspirations From Steve

Thanks to Steve MacLaughlin at Blackbaud for making our editorial lives at The Agitator so much easier. I’ve just been browsing through his 50 Fascinating Nonprofit Statistics. There’s enough fodder here to inspire Agitator posts for weeks! You’ll get one tomorrow. What more could you want to know about the US nonprofit sector? One of […]

Learn More February 19, 2014