Award Winning Blog

Year-end Results

We’re seeing some discussion by fundraising consultants of their clients’ year-end results. Here are two examples … M+R Strategic Services (look for "Ups & Downs of Online Giving") talks about theirs … with interesting results from Oxfam America. And Nick Allen of Donordigital makes some observations about number of gifts remaining steady, while average gifts […]

Learn More February 5, 2009

The Theology Of The Hammer

Early yesterday, Millard Fuller, the co-founder of Habitat for Humanity, died suddenly. The ministry he and his wife Linda founded in 1976 out of a small gray house in Americus, Georgia has provided poverty housing for 1.5 million people. The papers, networks and fundraising trade press will herald the fact that, a millionaire by 30, […]

Learn More February 4, 2009

Online Fundraisers: The Eyes Have It

Here is a provocative piece of advice for online fundraisers from copywriting maven Jerry Huntsinger, an Agitator guest writer. Jerry argues that — first and foremost — websites need to feature emotion, not information. But information is the focus of too many nonprofit websites, especially their key landing pages, where the initial battle to engage […]

Learn More February 3, 2009

A Remarkable Statistic

Last week The Agitator devoted a great deal of attention to social networking sites and their importance to fundraisers … though I submit that — despite lots of "be my nonprofit’s friend" and "support my walk for …" fundraising experiments — no one has yet found the key to unlocking this potential. Here, from TechCrunch, […]

Learn More February 2, 2009

More Value From Missionaries

This week I’ve pitched the importance of leveraging your "missionaries" with new social networking tools as a fundraising strategy. I’ve also suggested ways to identify which of the 10-15% of your donors might be your missionaries. But missionaries have an additional value beyond any direct personal fundraising they might do. I submit that they are […]

Learn More January 30, 2009

How Find Your Missionaries

OK, I’ve been harping for a few days on harnessing your nonprofit’s "missionaries" — and empowering them with online social marketing tools — to bolster your fundraising efforts. So, Agitator reader Patricia Perkins asked me, how would I find my missionaries in the first place? Great question. Were I starting from scratch, here’s what I’d […]

Learn More January 29, 2009