Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Nonprofit Failure Is Too Rare

The past two days, Roger has written (here and here) about innovative ways to test direct mail acquisition packages. He’s also written recently (here and here) about applying predictive modeling techniques to donor prospecting … including tools for smaller organizations. But how willing, really, are nonprofits to innovate? Here’s Seth Godin’s take on that subject […]

Learn More December 6, 2012

Acquisition: Direct Mail Testing – Part 2

One of the biggest pitfalls in direct mail testing is the ‘baby & the bathwater’ problem. The problem occurs when an organization or its consultant creates and mails a test package with numerous test elements. Or to put it in the vernacular, a whole bunch of stuff is changed. When this happens, the results for […]

Learn More December 5, 2012

Acquisition: Direct Mail Testing – Part 1

Tom’s post on the Obama campaign’s email testing prompts me to weigh in on one of the least understood and woefully mis-practiced skills in the direct response fundraiser’s repertoire – direct mail testing. Recognize any of these symptoms in your organization or among your clients? The test ideas that make it into the mail […]

Learn More December 4, 2012

Hey!

There’s testing … and there’s TESTING! I might have promised to move past marketing/fundraising lessons from the recent US election campaigns, but I just can’t resist passing this article along — The Science Behind Those Obama Campaign E-Mails — from Bloomberg Businessweek. The Obama digital team, which included 20 writers alone (!), tested every aspect […]

Learn More December 3, 2012

Top 12 Reasons Why Fundraising Best Practices Suck

1) Best Practices lead to copying 2) Copying is a race to look the same 3) When everything looks the same it is a commoditized market 4) A commoditized market is very price sensitive 5) A price sensitive offering can only improve margin through cost management 6) By only focusing on cost management the innovation […]

Learn More November 30, 2012

Brilliant Fundraising Products

I’ve always been intrigued with the challenge of growing monthly giving programs. We’re all familiar with the undisputed king of monthly giving — child sponsorship (this might be the first … Plan Spain, 1937). [I’m not quite sure why SOFII included The Onion’s hilarious spoof of child sponsor programs in its coverage here. Although I […]

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