Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Create A “Passion Panel”

Starbucks uses its "Passion Panel" to come up with new products and line extensions. This is a group of Starbucks’ best customers who respond to online queries in return for perks. [What, you say, Starbucks doesn’t have enough variations on the Frappuccino already?!] Maybe your nonprofit could use a Passion Panel of your own best […]

Learn More April 28, 2010

Understanding Boomers

This post won’t help you raise more money tomorrow. However, it deals with a demographic and attitudinal shift that will affect nonprofit fundraising for decades to come. There are lots of "Boomer experts" touting their insights … you might say it’s a booming business. My favorite, because he’s so deeply grounded in data, which he […]

Learn More April 27, 2010

Make “Small” Your Advantage

Not every Agitator reader has a multi-million dollar fundraising and communications budget to work with! So we keep an eye out for fundraising advice that’s especially relevant for smaller nonprofits. Here’s an example from Doodig Blogs. This article — 5 Top Fundraising Mistakes Made By Small Nonprofits — stresses five points … all essentially about […]

Learn More April 26, 2010

Are You Invisible?

From a recent post by marketing maven Seth Godin: "…someone’s worldview, how they feel about risk or other factors, is beyond your ability to change in the short run. Sell people something they’re interesting in buying. If you can’t leverage the worldview they already have, you are essentially invisible." This is another way of talking […]

Learn More April 23, 2010

Eat Your Heart Out, America!

Rapidata, the UK’s leading processor of direct-debit charitable and commercial transactions, has just released a massive study of monthly giving in the UK, with a special focus on 2008 to 2009 comparisons. To put this in context, 37% of donors in the UK are monthly givers, and such giving amounts to 31% of the giving […]

Learn More April 22, 2010

A Quality Online Conference

May seems to be the month for online fundraising conferences. We’ve already mentioned the May 20 e-conference of Fundraising Success. Here’s another … with a point of distinction … an online conference with "peer review"!! When have you been to any fundraising conference where the presentations were "peer-reviewed?" That’s the point of differentiation for ifc […]

Learn More April 21, 2010