Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Is Your Fundraising Stuck?

Or is it just you? Yes, your fundraising could be flatlining because the economy is still struggling. Or those dullards over on the program side simply aren’t doing anything exciting enough to energize donors. Or your CEO was just charged with embezzlement. Or some other ‘exogenous’ factor over which you have no control. Or it […]

Learn More June 27, 2014

Groundhog Day In June

Tom’s post, Selling Your Board on Direct Response, served as a painful reminder that many of our Agitator brothers and sisters are right now ending the agony of the ‘budget season’ in those groups where the fiscal year begins in July. This perennial run-up or countdown to the final draft and ultimate adoption of the […]

Learn More June 26, 2014

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