Award Winning Blog - Agitator

The Secret Millionaire vs Jacques Cousteau

Two colleagues of mine, Ryann Miller and Caity Craver — both from DonorTrends and both a generation younger — recently shared with me this email exchange they had. The topic: TV "reality shows" based on giving away big sums of money. Perhaps you’ve seen these programs. I haven’t. But I will admit that decades ago […]

Learn More December 10, 2008

Now Be Honest

Over the years, we’ve seen that most donors give on average to six or seven charities or causes. Maybe you fit this profile. I’m going to presume that most of the nonprofits you personally support communicate regularly with you via email (assuming you’ve given them permission). Now I ask you to be honest … Do […]

Learn More December 9, 2008

In Fundraising, Size Matters

Now, if ever, we all need to lift up our sights, widen our horizons and strive for the lofty. In lowliness and commonness there is no hope. One of the joys of sharing The Agitator with Tom is there are no control-freak editors. We each have our say. So, today, I’m pre-empting one of Tom’s […]

Learn More December 8, 2008

Important Email Marketing Lessons

Return Path, an email marketing consultancy, offers some excellent recommendations about managing your email marketing (donor and activist) files. Their report, based on studying 61 leading commercial email marketers, is called: Keeping the Subscriber Experience Positive After "Unsubscribe Me" (you’ll need to register at ReturnPath to download). Some interesting factoids: 30% of these companies never […]

Learn More December 5, 2008

Who’s Learning From Whom?

In a recent article titled, Marketers Reach out to Loyal Customers, the Wall Street Journal reports what nonprofit fundraisers (at least the direct marketers) have known for decades … retention and repeat sales (gifts) are the foundation of profitability. Here’s how the article begins … "With the critical holiday-sales season at hand, there’s a new […]

Learn More December 4, 2008

Time To Strengthen Your Online Fundraising Presence?

YES! Emphatically, argues Convio’s Founder Vinay Bhagat in this timely article, Strengthening Your Online Presence: Now Is the Time. Now of course we wouldn’t be expecting Vinay to be championing direct mail or telemarketing! Nonetheless, he makes a well-articulated case for nonprofits to move aggressively to expand and refine their online fundraising and engagement efforts. […]

Learn More December 3, 2008