You’ve got your sleeves rolled up – you’re ready for your fall fundraising. You and roughly 161,000 other charities and non-profits in Canada. And you – and 161,000 other compelling, inspiring causes are also seeking new donors for your movement. Today, a few friendly reminders from your Agents of Good about donor acquisition that puts [...]

A while ago I was sitting around thinking about all the cool twitter apps we SHOULD have because they would be quite handy… I’d also like to give @javaj9 and @unmarketing a bit of credit for the inspiration… Feel free to add your into the comments… SweetTweets: shows you your most popular tweets of all [...]

You’re entering the busiest time of year in fundraising. Which means, so is everyone else. Everyone is bombarding your donors with their messages, their missions and their important news… In other words, you need to be different, better and more important to your donor than everyone else to ensure you get heard. With that in [...]

By the time we met…the times had already changed – Arcade Fire, We Used To Wait My daughter Sadie spent a few precious minutes (as long as she ever sits still) on the lap of her great grandfather recently. They shared their love of the natural world looking at the bright orange Oriole and the [...]

At times I feel slightly tired of myself saying over and over, “We don’t know what it will cost to do _______, we need to talk to you about the why’s, the how’s, the who’s, the what if’s and the want’s first… we need to have a conversation.” “What do you mean… con-ver-sa-tion?” “You know… [...]

(Please note: all similarity to you or your cause is purely coincidental.) Dear Ms. Nit-Picker, This is an open letter to charity staff members who edit fundraising appeals. With special focus on those of you who aren’t direct response fundraisers or have a clue about fundraising strategy. Just like with my Dear Mr. Fancypants blog, [...]

It’s the middle of July – otherwise known as “the hot and hazy days of summer” here in Ontario. You, our readers, and you, our clients have given us a lot to think about – and work on – in the first half of 2011. Some highlights for us have been: – Creating custom essential [...]

Barack Obama is my friend. On Facebook. Me and 21 million (almost 22 million) of his closest friends received this post in our feed this week: Rather than setting a goal of millions of dollars for this campaign’s first big deadline on Thursday, we’re setting a goal of 450,000 grassroots donors. So far, 404,954 people [...]

What happened to the concept speaking and writing plainly? Recently I sat on an awards committee where part of my role was to review the all of the applications… but I realized (especially after having to read 1 paragraph like 6 times) that somewhere we have lost our way. I’ve sat in boardrooms, I’ve read [...]

Last year, the Agents were thrilled to work with our partner in crime, Agent Kimberly Mackenzie at Ontario Nature on a campaign about ‘bird strikes’ in Toronto – migrating birds getting killed into office buildings. Our approach was to have “Ruby” the Hummingbird write to donors, and include a map of her journey. A few [...]