Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Verdict On Annual Reports

Lots of very constructive responses to our question of last week: Are Annual Reports Dinosaurs? And it looks like we have a hung jury! One group leans toward more timely and frequent donor communication, including in lieu of "saving it up" for the annual report. Another group says different strokes for different folks … so […]

Learn More February 15, 2010

Where, Where, Everywhere

As I outlined this “Where” segment of The Agitator’s Who-What-Why-When-Where series, I began by concentrating mostly on the proper selection or integration of fundraising channels –online, offline, mail, email, phone, tv, print. The “Where” to send the message. That was before I took a break and glanced at Charity Navigator. My curiosity was unrelated to […]

Learn More February 12, 2010

Are They Dinosaurs?

No … I’m not talking about prospecting letters that break even. Nor am I talking about telemarketing calls. I’m referring to that most venerated publication of all nonprofits … The Annual Report! Here’s a question from Agitator readers Bob Bland and Matt Wolcott that I can’t resist passing along for your comments: "It is Annual […]

Learn More February 11, 2010

Excellent Direct Response Advice

Direct marketing pro (and publisher of Target Marketing) Denny Hatch, who’s seen it all, distilled a ton of experience into this article on direct response copywriting. I’ll summarize some of his takeaways here, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t taste the full flavor of Denny’s entire piece (our ".edu" readers will be […]

Learn More February 10, 2010

Who Do You Trust?

If there’s one approach marketers have been united in touting as the best form of advertising or promotion, it’s word of mouth recommendation … referrals and endorsements from friend to friend, colleague to colleague, relative to relative. I’d count myself as one of those marketers. Of course a huge surge of support for "word of […]

Learn More February 9, 2010

Facebook’s “Senior Surge”

Can’t ignore Facebook as a channel for reaching nonprofit donors. Apart from the sheer volume of traffic on Facebook, 112 million unique visitors in 2009, as reported in Online Media Daily, consider this … "…older users remain among the fastest-growing populations on Facebook. Men 45 to 54 showed the highest growth rate last month — […]

Learn More February 8, 2010