Award Winning Blog - Agitator

UNCF Gets C+

Awhile back the NYT ran this piece on the re-branding campaign of the United Negro College Fund. When I saw that the Fund actually acted on the advice they received from a prominent “branding” consultancy to change their name (for non-legal communications purposes) to UNCF, I thought to myself, “what a dumb move.” [OK, I'll […]

Learn More February 4, 2008

Acquisition Best Practices

Recently, in The Baby and the Bathwater, Roger wrote about the disturbing industry-wide decline in new donor acquisition, as documented by Target Analysis Group. He discussed this trend in the context of predictions of the death of direct mail. We don't want to just leave you wringing your hands! Here is a very helpful piece […]

Learn More February 1, 2008

12 Tips For Successful E-Campaigns

Thanks to Margaret Battistelli at FundRaising Success for publishing these twelve best practices for e-efforts. They're proffered by Tom Gaffny, EVP for fundraising at Epsilon. As part of his homework, Tom made online contributions to 145 nonprofits and tracked their subsequent actions. Here's the stunner: 49 groups (one-third) never even acknowledged the gift. For the […]

Learn More January 31, 2008

Relevance Is The Word

Relevance. Relevance. Relevance! Relevance, that is, to your prospect … not just to you or your nonprofit. Now matter how truly needy, important and urgent your cause is, your donor gives because the act of giving satisfies a need of his or hers. Finding what makes your need converge with their need is what establishing […]

Learn More January 30, 2008

Blogs And Your Earned Media Strategy

From Online Marketing Blog, here is an important discussion of two studies on journalists and their use of blogs for news ideas and sources. Some factoids: Nearly 70% of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis; Almost half of reporters say they are “lurkers”; Over three-quarters see blogs as helpful in giving […]

Learn More January 29, 2008

I Like Walmart

And I'm not the least bit ashamed. This week, Lee Scott, CEO of Walmart, delivered a speech to his store managers called The Company of the Future. I urge you to read it. In the speech, Scott sets forth a series of pro-social goals for the corporate behemoth. He says in effect, that with enormous […]

Learn More January 25, 2008