Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Acquisition: What About Testing DRTV?

Direct Response Television (DRTV) isn’t for everyone, but for many organizations it’s proven to be a powerful and essential tool in acquiring monthly donors. My friend Russ Reid, pioneered this medium in the U.S. and today the Russ Reid Company carries on his tradition. In this first of a series of posts by Robbin […]

Learn More January 14, 2013

Could the Commercial Sector Really Be This Wrong?

Fact: when it comes to measuring marketing performance, the nonprofit and commercial sectors are much more similar than they are different. Yes, bottom line revenue goes to different places but the way in which nonprofits and commercial counterparts evaluate effectiveness is through similar metrics; acquisition of new donors/customers, retention of donors/customers, lifetime value, etc. Given […]

Learn More January 11, 2013

The Non Profit Sector Needs More Debt…Seriously.

The post title is a blatant attempt to generate interest. That said, it is a true (if incomplete) statement. What the sector is in desperate need of are markets; debt, equity, M&A markets. In short, it needs buyers and sellers, creditors and equity holders. In the commercial sector these are necessary financial tools for […]

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“We Love Disruption”

Salesforce is perhaps the commercial world’s leading sales support and customer management software platform. The company’s chief, Marc Benioff (hmmm, does The Agitator have a thing for ‘Marc’s’ this week?) knows a thing or two about managing customer relationships. You might think in terms of donor relationships. Here are some observations he shared during a […]

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Surviving The Flight To Quality

Like Roger in yesterday’s post, I was quite impressed by the observations Marc Chardon. CEO of Blackbaud, made in this 4-minute video about the fundraising year ahead. Lots of nuggets in there, but what most popped out at me was his comment predicting a donor “flight to quality”, as he put it — he thinks […]

Learn More January 10, 2013

Exciting Time To Be A Fundraiser

I had already posted yesterday’s piece on the importance of thinking bigger and better when I received Marc Chardon’s view of the “Key Non Profit Sector Trends in 2013.” Marc is the CEO of Blackbaud. His views are important. Partly because he sets the future strategy for a company that provides fundraising tools and data […]

Learn More January 9, 2013