I’ve gone on record with why I hate Giving Tuesday but I’m curious to know what others thought. Were you bombarded with appeals? Were any of them good? Did you volunteer or get involved in a different way? If so, what was your experience? While I saw a lot of unthoughtful,...

Is benevolent buying good or bad for charity? That’s the question I discuss in my latest post on HuffingtonPost Impact Why Amazon Is Smiling and Charities May Be Losing. Taking from arguments against slacktivism you can sure make the case that the business and consumer benefit but the...

I was reading about donor retention on The Agitator when a provocative thought and idea was presented: The fact is that research clearly shows that when it comes to improving Lifetime Value — the only true metric that matters — the tactics/techniques/frequency of activity from the...

There’s a great debate within the charitable sector around the value of a “Like” or if it really helps a cause in the long run. This is usually a debated around “slacktivism” and a recent study has brought it to the surface again. The study finding is summarized here: “Our...

It’s that time of year again, when the fundraising world, increasingly the online fundraising world, makes a mad dash to the year end finish line trying to secure online donations while charitable spirit is high and tax incentive cut off date looms. The Agitator had a good post about...

Some people expressed an interest in seeing the slides from the presentation I did with HubSpot on 4 Ways to Engage Millennials in Your Nonprofits Work so here they are. You can also watch a recorded version of the presentation...

Are you looking and doing more email communications but don’t know good tools? Maybe you want to update your CRM but don’t know where to start? Or perhaps you’re interested in just finding ways to work faster, smarter and better? Well have I got a charity toolkit for you! In...

Customer service can make you, or break you. Fundraisers need to understand they are in the customer service business and we need to understand the bottom line benefit of great customer service. KISS Metrics had a great post and infographic (below) on why companies with great customer service...

One of the most common problems that I come in contact with for nonprofits is “how do we reach the next generation”? Well if that’s one of the questions you’re asking, here’s a couple resources/opportunities that might be able to help around ways to engage...

I had the chance to attend The Art of Marketing Conference in Vancouver with some folks like Arianna Huffington, Scooter Braun and Jonah Berger. Almost every session touched on or featured ideas, science and trends around word of mouth marketing and its value (one more reason to start figuring...

The elevator speech. You have 60 seconds in an elevator with someone and what do you say? In the fundraising class that I teach we ask students in one of their assignments to write their elevator speech and it is one of the worst things I have to grade the entire class. It’s not unique...

If you want a great nonprofit brand, hire great people. If that’s all you do you’ll be on your way. Yes you need to tell great stories, close the loop and find ways to connect with your core supporters and heroes but it starts with great people. And not just your fundraisers and...