Search Results for: ask less
Clueless CEOs — Barriers To Growth, Part 4
Stagnant organizations are generally marked by lousy boards and clueless, or worse, arrogant CEOs. Without the leadership of an engaged, aware and willing-to-learn CEO you might as well forget about growth. Why? Because there’s likely to be no serious investment funds made available … no radical organizational change, led from the top, to break down […]
Ask And You’ll Receive. Seek And You’ll Find.
Spring and the conference season are now upon us, and I wanted to share with you a couple of ‘coming attractions’ featuring folks in the Agitator family. ATTRACTION # 1 – Tomorrow, March 18th, Gail Perry will host a Telesummit on “The Art of Asking: Bringing Home the Money” featuring a keynote by Agitator Roger […]
Acquisition: Asking The Wrong Question
Our August post on Catch & Release Fishing focused — yet again — on the burning need to get serious about retention. At the time Lisa Sargent worried that our intense focus on retention might be interpreted as damning acquisition in general, and she urged us to do more on the flip side of the […]
How Often To Ask?
This is one of the perennial questions of fundraising, particularly direct response fundraising. Anyone who has THE answer is welcome to guest author an Agitator post on the subject. But here is as close to a definitive answer as I think there is … courtesy of fundraiser Ken Burnett. His key point … “It’s not […]
Flat Earth Fundraising: Lessons From Italy & Greece
Permit me a personal essay, please. The reason your 401(k) is turning into a 101(k) is because politicians don’t understand numbers. Numbers that reflect the reality of too much bank leverage … too much spending … too little revenue. This has nothing to do with ideology. It’s just math. ‘Innumerate’ is the term for folks […]
Lazy Or Careless Fundraising?
Here’s an email The Agitator received yesterday … Good morning Agitator! I had two very disappointing donor experiences occur yesterday, and I just wanted to share. Mainly because BOTH could have been avoided if somebody had bothered to take a look at their own data correctly. The first experience was recounted to me by a […]
They Never Even Ask!
Last week I urged you to read Network for Good’s excellent study on online giving. In case you haven’t, here’s a passage that might interest you. Noting that those who give to charities’ own websites give more over time than donors who give via ‘portal’ or social networking sites, the study observes: “Charities don’t always […]
Loyalty Lesson From The Who
New ads for Shure, the microphone maker, feature various artists — like Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who — professing their steadfast loyalty to the brand. Says Daltrey: "These mics are the only ones I’ll use." Do you have stories of commitment from your most loyal donors? Have you asked for them? Don’t […]
The Power of Auto-Renewal: Why Are You Waiting?
I grew up among the Pennsylvania Dutch who constantly reminded me, “We grow too old soon and too late smart.” They might as well have had fundraisers in mind because it takes us lots and lots of time to adopt the proven best practices of others. Too much time. Too much lost donor loyalty and […]
Good Enough Is No Longer Good Enough – Part 4: Donor Journeys
The journey the organization wants the donor to go on is not usually the journey the donor wants to go on. The reason for this disconnect is that few organizations truly understand why donors choose to stay or leave, let alone know when the donor makes the decision to leave. This is not a new […]