Search Results for: privacy

About a week ago I wrote about this story in The Nonprofit Quarterly: “Group Uses Fictitious Children to Boost Fundraising: Poverty Porn?” I guess the title itself suggests that publication’s verdict! Our commenters were more tolerant. Said Chip Heartfield: “It is not clear if the stories are composites or represent one child whose real name […]

Editors’ Note: This is the first of a three-part series on how some politicians and their special interest supporters are attempting to intimidate, discredit and destroy nonprofits that oppose them through the misuse of fundraising regulations.  Saturday the 9th marked the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s resignation for abuse of power and process. Sadly, on […]

OK, maybe this is a bit of a stretch. But think about it … what exactly is the ‘status’ or ‘standing’ you want your nonprofit to have in the hearts and minds of your donors? I suspect your answer to that question will say a lot about you feel about them! Are they cash machines? […]

Direct response fundraisers realize that customizing appeals to specific donors will lift results. But what information is available to allow you to make just the right appeal? In the fundraising sector, we’re pretty good at capturing and using transactional information — past giving history (which should include what kind of appeals have been responded to, […]

Just a few hours ago Tom and I were engaged in our semi-weekly food fight and screaming session about what posts will — and won’t — make it for the coming week. On one thing we agreed. Yesterday’s brilliant piece in The New York Times Magazine is a must read for every Agitator interested in […]

Yesterday I wrote about optimizing donor data, versus privacy sensitivities. Then last night I saw an article on this study, which is a great example of just how far personal data analysis can go in terms of predictive capability. As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, these researchers […]

The other day during our presentation to the Bridge Conference, Roger chided me for writing as much as I do about social media. His point: this is a fundraising blog, after all, so let’s ‘follow the money’ and talk about direct mail and a bit of email fundraising. Today I’m writing about social media again, […]

Here’s one for you online fundraisers. The capability exists to target email messages to specific consumers (donor prospects?) using their IP addresses, with that information cross-matched with a variety of demographic markers. Here’s the background and a pitch from one supplier of such data, Elect Strategies (as reported in ClickZ): “We can provide physical addresses […]

In a recent post titled Gala economics, marketing maven Seth Godin trashes fundraising galas. He argues: “…the gala is actually corrupting. Attendees are usually driven by social and selfish motivations to attend, and thus the philanthropic element of giving–just to give–is removed.” Of course, one could argue that many ‘big checks’ are so-motivated, at least […]

Many of you are probably following — more avidly than me — the changes being made to the Facebook platform. With more time being spent on social nets, and Facebook in particular (it’s now having half billion user days!), it’s a platform nonprofits have to master. And at the same time, everything that’s ‘good’ for […]