Deadheads and Preachers

I received an email last week, and in the first four words, I was drawn into a deeply emotional time. Those 4 words? “I have terrible news.” An old friend and colleague was writing about the death of her husband, best friend, life partner and father to her 6 month old infant. He lost his [...]

Continue reading...

I just got a call…

I just got a call. And here you are reading my blog about it. You’re going to hear my venting. But if you can hang on through the rage, you’ll also hopefully think about how you talk to your donors/communities of supporters. Phone rings. Me: “hello?” Pause. Clicking. Some kind of murmuring. Me: “hello!?” Murmur [...]

Continue reading...

Small and Mighty!

Leah Eustace of GoodWorks Co. asked us to work with her on this post about why small shops (charities) are way more WICKED than the big shops… you’re more nimble, you’re usually not as silo’d, you tend to be a little more chilled and relaxed, you care for each and everyone of your donor more, [...]

Continue reading...

Das Mail

So I recently bought a new car. A VW Golf Wagon. Just the right balance of race car (6-speed turbo diesel engine) and mom car (room for my 2 kids and our shaggy dog). I came home to this in my mailbox. Wrapped in that old-school brown paper, hand-taped. A stamp from “Wolfsburg, Deutschland” on [...]

Continue reading...

Think Thanks

Happy New Year, dear readers. Our New Year’s gift to you is to not write our blog about the one thing you should do as a fundraiser in 2011. In Agents style, we are writing a blog about the one thing you should do for your donors in 2011. And that’s think about your thank [...]

Continue reading...

#YearInReview What did you ship in 2010?

My good friend (in my mind) Seth Godin asked me, asked all of us – what did we ship in 2010? Seth uses this term “Ship” to talk about ANYTHING you might have delivered to your market. Anything. As a entrepreneur, I am crap at reflecting and celebrating – there is always new work to [...]

Continue reading...

Stunning Simplicity

A quick post today to remind us all about the beautiful simplicity of fundraising. It is so easy to get turned inside out and upside down thinking about integrated campaigning, multi-channel fundraising, over-thinking our approach and completely rush past one stunningly obvious thing: asking for one thing. One of our clients established a monthly giving [...]

Continue reading...

#afpcongress: By the hashtags, scribbles, photos and vids

Here are the highlights from our scribbled notes and tweets from Congress. We heartily encourage all fundraisers to check out the #afpcongress hashtag to review the highlights from all tweeps in attendance. Scribbles: Wendy Mesley: “Trust is not being given to institutions but to individuals.” Sean Triner (@seantriner) on “witnessing”. This is brilliant. Sean insists [...]

Continue reading...

Innovation & Stupidity: In Defence of John Lepp

Always good to hear from you, Dear Readers. And we’ve been hearing from many of you in response to John’s blogs on Innovation and Stupidity. You challenged us (well, John, but I agree with him) about spouting off without knowing the results of the mailings. Busted. But that wasn’t the point. This is direct marketing, [...]

Continue reading...

F*ck you and, uh, f*ck them too

Over the past five years, external fundraisers in Canada have taken in more than $750 million – CBC Investigates Your Charity Dollars. You know it’s fall in Canada when the news media jacks up coverage of how much money charities spend on fundraising. They eviscerate charities — and their agencies — who spend almost as [...]

Continue reading...