Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Bad News From Breaking Bad

You’ve heard the old chestnut: ‘No publicity is bad publicity’. Well, the folks at the National Cancer Coalition are re-thinking that one! This ‘charity’ was recently listed as #21 on the “America’s Worst Charities” rankings by the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting. OK, by any definition, that’s not good publicity. But […]

Learn More August 23, 2013

Google This!

Enter the terms ‘donor’ and ‘digital’ into Google and you get 13,600,000 results. Yesterday Google itself added to the searchable research pile on donors’ digital behavior. In a study titled The Path to Donation (download summary here), Google and the market researchers from MillwardBrown Digital revealed that donor research leading up to year-end giving starts […]

Learn More August 22, 2013

Loyalty … By Carole King

Roger is revving up the retention engine, as you saw in yesterday’s post. Today I’d like to help set the mood. In one of the best songs ever written (IMHO), timeless Carole King worries about the enduring loyalty of her lover. The next time your team gathers to talk about donors, retention and loyalty, get […]

Learn More August 21, 2013

The Rest Of The Retention Story

I’m just about finished with my book — Retention Fundraising — that will be headed to the publisher at the end of this week. But some of the key stuff in the book just shouldn’t wait. Hopefully you can put some of the research and findings to work immediately. Of course, I’ll flog the book […]

Learn More August 20, 2013

Fundraisers Are Like Farmers

“Don’t blame the economy” seems to be a popular mantra among some fundraisers lately. These optimists appear to believe that financially struggling households will continue to give just as much as they always have … they’ll just eat less, or forgo paying next month’s electric bill or health insurance premium. Somehow, lower disposable incomes will […]

Learn More August 19, 2013

Frugality Persists

Citing data from Giving USA 2013, back in June Roger discussed the very slow recovery of charitable giving since the 2008 recession — giving in 2012 was up 3.9% (only 1.5% adjusting for inflation) over 2011. At that rate, it would take 6-7 more years for giving to reach the pre-recession high of $344.48 billion […]

Learn More August 16, 2013