Howard Gossage is my favourite Mad Man. If I have an advertising hero, it's probably him. Howard didn't particularly enjoy coming up with ways to sell more cars and airline tickets, he was just rather good at it. What interested him most was making the…

I've always thought that we have a great deal to learn from the humble collection box. Even with something as simple as a container with a hole in the top, testing shows that design, copy, and positioning will have a major influence over how much…

I've not always been the all knowing guru that I shamelessly pretend to be on this blog. It may be hard to believe, but I was once a fundraising cretin who thought that putting a good appeal together was simply down to listening to your…

As featured in ADWEEK as a tribute to his 100th Birthday. Illustration by Joao Maio Pinto.

The Resource Alliance has recently released a video of a presentation I was involved in at last years IFC in Amsterdam. Together with Damian O'Broin from Ask Direct in Ireland and Sandra Cnossen-Albers from WSPA in The Netherlands (who now runs her own fundraising consultancy,…

A rather interesting paper has just been published by CGAP and CMPO looking at three decades of charitable giving in the UK. It's based on a detailed analysis on the main trends in giving that uses the government's Living Costs and Food Survey (which used…

I picked up a copy of My Life in Advertising & Scientific Advertising a short while ago. It was written in the 1920s by Claude Hopkins. Claude was an ad man who wasn’t too shabby at his craft. Back in 1907 he was earning $185,000…

I've just got back from the International Fundraising Conference in Amsterdam. I'd been invited to speak about direct marketing and seeing as it was their 30th anniversary, I decided to look at what fundraisers were doing back in 1981 for some source material. As regular…

Another treat from the archives from Gary Shearin at the YMCA. This time it’s an appeal letter from the 1880’s and It’s a cracker. The goal is the construction of a new YMCA in Newcastle-on-Tyne. In effect, it’s a very early version of face to…

Gary Shearin from YMCA England has discovered a couple of great examples of YMCA fundraising materials in their archives. I was particularly impressed with this feedback piece produced in 1916. Before the days of computers and spreadsheets, the clerks at the YMCA were able to…