Award Winning Blog - Agitator

New Environment For NGOs & Advocates

In this slide presentation, Lee Rainie of Pew Internet presents ten “fresh realities” of the digital age that NGOs (and others) must contend with to succeed in persuading others. What Rainie says, much of it related to the explosion of social media and mobile communications, applies to all messaging and communications, which makes these observations […]

Learn More January 26, 2012

We’re In This Together

Yesterday I posted on SOFII’s “Top 23” all-time great fundraising campaigns. I playfully asked “Why 23?” SOFII’s Ken Burnett responded with a Comment that I wanted to share, in part, more broadly: “And why 23? Well, we started with 21 (seemed like the key to the door or something, a nice handy number), and privilege […]

Learn More January 25, 2012

Is using the statistical average bad non profits?

Can a statistic be bad? Maybe an overstatement but the Average, a universally used (but maybe not fully understood) statistic can sure hide a lot. And without assigning malice or intent to the “hiding”, reliance on the average as an input to decision making can result in lots of bad outcomes. There are countless examples […]

Learn More January 24, 2012

Best Of The Best Fundraising Campaigns

From SOFII, aggregator of proven fundraising materials and insights, here is their list of the “23 all time great fundraising campaigns”. Each comes with a link describing or illustrating the campaign. I have two favorites on this list … The UNICEF card that launched that’s organization’s fundraising in 1946 — just because it’s so iconic. […]

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Career Pitfalls For Fundraisers

Seth Godin posted a rant last week on the US Congress, and offered this list of elected official behaviors to avoid in pursuing any career. Agitator friend Caity Craver thought this wasn’t a bad list for nonprofit fundraisers to think about. In all things, look for money first. Listen to people with money, respond to […]

Learn More January 23, 2012

4% Growth In Giving Forecast For 2012

U.S. charitable giving expanded in 2011 at a rate far exceeding economic growth for the year, and continued growth in giving is forecast for 2012 according to a major report just released by The Atlas of Giving. (View with a free subscription.) The Agitator also reports on the GivingUSA and the Blackbaud Indexes, but unlike […]

Learn More January 20, 2012