The Agitator

Here, from The FLA Group, is a superb paper on how to craft your fundraising case. I wish (for the sake of US readers) I had seen it before the Thanksgiving holiday. I would have insisted that you take it home and memorize it over your "off" days. The basic principles presented in ...  Read more

Here’s some food for the brain if you have some spare time over the Thanksgiving holiday.  Agitator readers outside the US, set it aside for your next long weekend. You won’t raise more money tomorrow from reading this report, but it might help you make better sense of the context ...  Read more

Yale economics professor Robert Shiller wrote an interesting column in the NY Times on Saturday. He talked about the 1930s roots of "recession" versus "depression" and the different mindsets associated with each. "Recessions" can be worked out and overcome … ...  Read more

This is our third and last report on The Agitator’s 2010 Fundraising Plans survey. In our previous two reports (here and here), we’ve described fundraisers’ mood as "creeping optimism," with 51% of our respondents expecting to raise more money in 2010, placing their ...  Read more

Yesterday, in our first report on The Agitator’s 2010 Fundraising Plans survey, we commented on the general mood of nonprofit fundraisers as they looked ahead to next year. Our assessment … creeping optimism. We noted that most fundraisers were expecting improvement in new donor ...  Read more

Today we’re giving the first of three topline reports on our just-concluded survey on nonprofit fundraisers’ 2010 fundraising plans. More tomorrow and Friday. Thanks to the 235 fundraisers who participated. We’ll start with the general mood and expectations. We asked a broad ...  Read more

We talk a lot about building relationships with current donors, especially in the face of more and more difficult new donor prospecting. Major gift fundraisers, at least the successful ones, are astute relationship builders. And generally the reward is quite apparent. It’s a bigger ...  Read more

Every charity or nonprofit that seeks money (or members, visitors, clients or customers) — and every consultant or agency serving nonprofits — faces competition. It can be direct — EDF vs NRDC, Duke vs Stanford, Convio vs Blackbaud, Save the Children vs Worldvision — ...  Read more

Agitator readers who are not subscribers to our email feed will not have received the following invitation from Roger earlier this week … Dear Agitator Reader: I’m writing to personally invite you to participate in The Agitator’s ‘Fundraising Plans for 2010′ online ...  Read more

The health care debate has been raging online, not just on Capitol Hill, as this article from ClickZ reports. An entire arsenal of online advocacy tactics have been unleashed, including: Search ads Online videos Facebook presence Online fundraising Petition sign-ups Animated display ads Online ...  Read more