Award Winning Blog - Agitator

He Planted Trees So Others Might Benefit From The Shade

At 6 p.m. this evening a celebration of the life and legacy of visionary philanthropist Robert W. Wilson will be held at The New York Public Library. Bob Wilson was no ordinary philanthropist. Not only did he contribute more than $600 million to a diverse range of causes, he attached one major condition to almost […]

Learn More March 10, 2014

Donordigital Goes Secret Shopping

Donordigital has just released a study on integrated fundraising — Integrated Fundraising: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly — based upon ‘secret shopping’ at 16 major US nonprofits. They made an initial online contribution to the 16 groups, and then for six months tracked all interactions with these organizations through direct mail, online and […]

Learn More March 7, 2014

Forecast Of 2014 Giving

This week the Atlas of Giving released their most recent month-by-month giving forecast for 2014. They forecast that national giving is expected to grow 5.3% for the calendar year, and 4.3% for the next 12 months through January,2015. The Atlas tracks giving across all charitable sectors including higher education and religion. It then uses a […]

Learn More March 6, 2014

50 Shades Of Gray

Shame on you for even thinking The Agitator would go there. Instead, the headline was triggered by the fact that the divorce rate among folks 50+ has doubled in the past 20 years. This trend should raise questions for fundraisers concerning the ‘gray’ set. Thus we were pleased to hear from Barry Nelson, Senior Director […]

Learn More March 5, 2014

We Require 2 Weeks Notice For Sudden Death

Last week, Phyllis Freedman, the gift planning specialist and just plain savvy fundraiser, asked in her blog, What’s Wrong With This Picture? The question — and far more importantly, the answer — deserves everyone’s immediate attention, but especially those working in planned giving. A gift planner had asked for advice based on these facts. Years […]

Learn More March 4, 2014

Bet You Can’t Give It Up

Pew Internet Research reminds us that the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web is in March. They date the occasion to publication of a now-famous paper by Tim Berners-Lee proposing an information management system — ‘distributed hypertext’ — that became the conceptual and architectural structure for the Web. To mark the occasion, they’ve compiled […]

Learn More March 3, 2014