A cheap and simple ad extolling the virtues of taking your loved one to Wellington Zoo this evening. With a picnic for two at $68 and private dining at $250, Wellington Zoo has solved a problem for men who are in need of a little...

If you support Kiva, you'll probably know that kivafriends.org is a great resource.  (If for some reason you haven't yet heard of Kiva, can I recommend that you visit their site – hopefully lending a few quid whilst you're at it – or check out this...

After sharing a few thoughts on the impact celebrities can have on appeals on Conor's fundraising blog, I've spent some time thinking about the recently announced NCVO celebrity-laden campaign aimed at encouraging people to donate £2 a month (or possibly volunteer a few hours). You...

Do you know what really interests your donors?  How about this list? Do your donors care about any of these issues? How efficient you are. How green you are. How thrifty you are. How you monitor the effect of appeals and campaigns, whether TV ads...

There's a polyhedron that is almost as important to fundraisers as the pyramids were to the ancient Egyptians. You'll see it time and time again in books on fundraising and projected on giant screens at conferences. It was proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943 in...

There are some interesting statistics available from Robin Goad on Hitwise regarding a recent RSPCA viral campaign. Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield, released a new episode of his cartoon series on YouTube on December the 8th. But rather than being about Simon's cat, it was...

If your head has been turned by the success of Kiva and you are thinking about how your charity might set up a similar direct giving product you need to know about FORGE. FORGE was set up by Kjerstin Erickson, a Stanford University student, who...

This is an incredibly strong video from Oxfam about the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But, to my mind, it would have been better had it ended at 1 minute with a call to action. The opening scenes are so moving that it doesn't...

I've always made time to visit Leland Maschmeyer's blogs and was interested in a recent posting that referred to a comment made by Pierre Martineau, director of marketing for The Chicago Tribune in the 1950's. He believed "the most important function of advertising isn't to...

 books have been part of my office furniture since I first discovered his work on persuasion and compliance on a trip to the US. Much of his thinking went into developing the strategy behind the prospecting campaigns that Bluefrog implemented through Gift for organisations like...