Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Fundraising Atlas Does More Than Shrug

At the end of April I reported on a new forecasting service, The Atlas of Giving. I called it an important innovation because fundraisers have largely sought guidance through the rear view mirror of past performance, as opposed to steering through the windshield of the present and future. After all, ‘til the Atlas of Giving […]

Learn More November 2, 2011

Breaking News – Make Your Donors Move to Get More $ (or not)…

Donor behavior matters, a lot. And since donor attitudes CAUSE donor behavior, we’d argue they matter, a lot. Consider this our bastardized version of the transitive property… The two are however, very complementary with behavior providing the “who” (i.e. targeting & selection) and attitudes providing the “why” (i.e. communications and marketing to educate, persuade and […]

Learn More November 1, 2011

Great Resource For Digital Campaigners

ClickZ’s senior editor Kate Kaye has performed a valuable service in preparing Digital Political Campaigns 201: Video Advertising. While this guide specifically looks at online political advertising, any nonprofit looking to target and engage a constituency online will find it very useful. As the guide says: “What makes video advertising unique is its ability to […]

Learn More

Isn’t It Nice To Win?

The winner for Most Innovative Fundraising Campaign at the recent International Fundraising Congress was Diankonie Frankfurt, for a campaign called Help the Oma (grandmothers). The campaign actually sought to enlist volunteers to help with Diakonie’s various social service programs. [I hope I’m reasonably accurate … my German isn’t what it used to be!] Here’s the […]

Learn More October 31, 2011

We’re Stoked!

Roger and I have just seen the latest CBS News/NY Times poll that says 43% of Americans agree with the views of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Only 27% disagree; 30% are unsure. As reported by CBS News’ Political Hotsheet: “While there are different agendas within the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement, nearly all of the […]

Learn More October 28, 2011

The massive (but fixable) problems with direct mail testing

See if this sounds at like your organization: The direct mail test ideas that actually make it into the mail stream are almost all incremental and rarely (mostly never) beat the control. You spend enormous amounts of time and money coming up with test ideas, producing them and managing the logistics, only to have the […]

Learn More October 27, 2011