Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Who Is Your Best Salesperson?

As reported in the NY Times, OgilvyOne has launched an international contest on YouTube to identify the "world’s greatest salesperson." Contestants must submit a 1-2 minute video in which they sell a common red brick! The winner gets a three-month fellowship at Ogilvy, during which they will help write a new "Guide to selling in […]

Learn More April 1, 2010

Terrible Fundraising Headline

I love Todd Cohen’s Philanthropy Journal. Excellent range of content. I’m a faithful reader. But I hate this March 26 headline: Fundraising out of sync with giving habits Todd’s story leads as follows: "Technology is changing the way people give, with different generations preferring to give in different ways, and nonprofits should adjust their fundraising […]

Learn More March 31, 2010

More On Checklists

Early in March, we published Checklist Heaven, a post citing direct marketing wiz Denny Hatch on the value of checklists for direct marketers. Denny in turn had been inspired by The Checklist Manifesto, a book written by Atul Gawande. All of this prompted UK’s John Rodd to go buy the book, and write this review, […]

Learn More March 30, 2010

Nonprofit “Customer Service”

As presented in Fast Company, here are some tips on building loyalty via exceptional customer service. They’re offered by Micah Solomon, co-author of Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit. Do nonprofits have "customers" and do they deliver "customer service"? You better believe it! I think every one of Solomon’s seven tips applies … especially when you roll […]

Learn More March 29, 2010

New Generational Giving Data

Convio has produced this valuable white paper on generational giving patterns. It’s based on a 2010 survey of 1500 recent donors to nonprofits. The paper is framed around four segments — Matures, Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. It’s chock full of data on how different generations give, their giving amounts, how they interact with […]

Learn More March 26, 2010

Adopt A Nerd

I was intrigued by this email fundraising appeal from Environmental Defense Fund (one of my alma maters), because it offered me some choice as a donor. However, I don’t think EDF pushed the choice concept as far as they could (see MyProjects for a look at what real donor choice looks like). The choice […]

Learn More March 25, 2010