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, [...]

Agent and Godfather of Good, David Love is back from Costa Rica and files this report from the field. Even in the middle of a tropical rainforest, the donor is never far from the Godfather’s mind. “But it’s so small.” Ann and I are looking at a tiny red-eyed tree frog on leaf in Costa [...]

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 [...]

I would say -oh -like 95% of charities (or at least the offices I have been to) have posters from their events, awards they have won, pictures of this and that. But, I’m curious… What do you have on your wall? I saw this tweet last week: @ActionAidUK: This inspirational piece of art in our [...]

“Direct mail is dead.” “Social media is going to change the world.” “Online is the only way to go.” “Our donors don’t give to mail.” “Telemarketing doesn’t work.” “No one watches DRTV.” After a few meetings this week and a bunch of reading, I am astounded at how much attention is given to specific channels [...]

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 [...]

And assuming you do too, here’s a helpful Venn diagram to help keep your communications and fundraising right on target. edit:

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]