Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Giving Tuesday … Or Was It Monday?

More often, Roger is the curmudgeon at The Agitator editors’ meetings, but I guess today the distinction falls to me. Roger called my attention to this notice that on the inaugural ‘#Giving Tuesday‘ (how did I miss this on my calendar?), online contributions (at least those processed by Blackbaud) were up 53% over the same […]

Learn More November 29, 2012

$1 Billion On Black Friday

‘Black Friday’ … the day after US Thanksgiving that for many marks the first ‘official’ shopping day of the holiday season, saw over $1 billion in online sales — the first time online sales have ever passed that milestone on any day. According to comScore, 57 million Americans made online purchases, with their chief destinations […]

Learn More November 28, 2012

Persuade Or Convince?

In this ‘to the point’ post, marketer Seth Godin argues simply that: “Marketers don’t convince. Engineers convince. Marketers persuade.” As Godin observes, persuasion is about emotion and imagination. Convincing is about data and rationality. His conclusion: “If you’re spending a lot of your time trying to convince people, it’s no wonder it’s not working.” In […]

Learn More November 27, 2012

Minced Pie And Fundraisers

The memory came flooding back last week as I read Tom’s post on telemarketing … … I had just made what I felt was a mighty effective case for a major gift from the CEO of a major American company and was absolutely startled when he said “No, I won’t give!” Shocked, I asked him, […]

Learn More November 26, 2012

Make Popcorn For Thanksgiving

Agitator readers know how infatuated I am with online video as a tool for fundraising storytelling. Here’s a tool — Popcorn Maker — that could revolutionize how you tell tell stories online with video. In essence, Popcorn lets you take a video, then amplify its content with other pertinent content — photos, links to articles, […]

Learn More November 21, 2012

“Will You Puhleeeeze Take This Call?”

No mode of fundraising takes more hard knocks than telemarketing. If telemarketers haven’t ruined your exquisitely timed dinner, then you’ve probably at least read the horror stories where 99.9% of the funds raised go to the telemarketer. Roger keeps promising that he’ll write a post on the positive fundraising contribution of telemarketing. Maybe this guest […]

Learn More November 20, 2012