Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Please Help Us Prepare

Roger and I are scheduled to present to the 2012 Bridge Conference coming up in Washington DC on August 7-9. The Conference is sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association of Washington and the DC Metro Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. We hope you’ll be one of the 1500 or so fundraisers who attend. […]

Learn More July 23, 2012

The Sunny Side Of Mortality

It’s a summer Friday for most of our readers. Happy to share this lighthearted essay — and bit of advice — from Lisa Sargent, fundraising copywriter and donor communications specialist … The Sunny Side of Mortality It happened in June. My husband came home and announced he was going to participate in a motorcycle ride […]

Learn More July 20, 2012

Would You Hold An Umbrella for Your Donors?

There was a great post on the Harvard Business Review Blog recently that caught my eye called “Earn Customer Loyalty Without Losing Your Shirt” which talks about a TD Bank loyalty strategy they refer to as the “1 to Say Yes, 2 to Say No” Rule. In a nutshell, the strategy promotes a culture driven […]

Learn More July 19, 2012

Top Nonprofit Brands

Nonprofit curator Joanne Fritz at About.com recently did this write-up on the top nonprofit brands … at least as identified by the 2012 Harris Poll Equitrend Study. The organizations in the survey were measured across a number of traits such as familiarity, intent to give, emotional appeal, volunteerism, etc. The top nonprofits are those that […]

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Crossing The (On)Line?

Last week I received a succession of email appeals from a nonprofit that shall remain nameless. On Tuesday July 10 I was told that the campaign in question had been extended for another week, and my gift would be matched 2:1 if I donated by that Friday, the 13th. A bar graph indicated $43,643 had […]

Learn More July 18, 2012

Flat Earth Fundraising: Preventing Bottom-line Shipwrecks

Before the 1700s ocean navigators could not find an accurate way of determining longitude. This failure caused ships to miss their destination, many times crashing into rocks and killing their crews. Although the concept of latitude was used by navigators for centuries, use of that concept alone was incomplete and dangerous without an accurate way […]

Learn More July 17, 2012