Award Winning Blog - Agitator

The End Of An Era. Thank Heavens!

A couple of days ago Tom relayed Ken Burnett’s view of what donors and fundraising will be like ten years from now. In brief, technology will put donors more in control of the channels through which we communicate with them…donors will seek greater accountability, transparency and control of how their money is spent and what […]

Learn More November 5, 2009

It Makes Me Cringe

When I read an article like this one in DM News, it makes me cringe. It’s talking about a study by online agency Return Path looking at the extent to which advocacy and arts groups collect (or not) and then use (or not) personal data on folks who sign up for these groups’ e-newsletters. After […]

Learn More November 4, 2009

Nonprofit Fundraising in 2020

Ken Burnett at SOFII (Showcase of Fundraising Innovation & Inspiration) recently wrote the following response to the question: How will donors be different in 2020 and how will they be the same? Says Ken: The answer, of course, is ‘Well, it depends…’. It depends principally on whether fundraisers will get clever and start building more […]

Learn More November 3, 2009

Handwritten Letters

Handwritten letters … what a concept! I enjoyed this article by Max Kalehoff writing in — of all places — Online Spin! Says Max: "… the growing volume of communications in digital form also drives attention deficit, dehumanization and diminishing returns. It’s a tragedy of the commons when digital innovations, celebrated for their improvement on […]

Learn More November 2, 2009

Keep It Simple

Yesterday, proffering a core principle of fundraising, I cited "trust is the new black," a phrase coined by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist. How does a nonprofit build trust amongst its constituents? Here a suggestion drawn from what appears to be the hottest trend in marketing these days, as reported by USA Today: "Simple is […]

Learn More October 30, 2009

Trust Is The New Black

Yesterday, we posted some data from Cone regarding the degree to which social media friends and fans used such media to make contributions. By and large, they do not. And the study we cited pointed to the issue of trust as the essential basis of both giving and online relationships. Here is a post titled […]

Learn More October 29, 2009