The lure of celebrity
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...
What interests your donors?
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...
The trouble with The Guardian
Polly Toynbee in The Guardian on Saturday painted a grim picture of the current state of philanthropy. Read her article and you could be forgiven for pulling the duvet over your head and hibernating until spring 2010. There's Tom Hunter changing his mind about giving...
Donors have needs too
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...
A new resource
There are a fair few blogs around with a focus on fundraising and a big chunk of other ones that look at management issues. But I haven't seen too many that look at management from a charity perspective. We work in a very special industry. One where people...
What will elite givers do in the downturn?
The Independent has recently published a list of Britain's 30 leading philanthropists*. Headed up by Sir Tom Hunter (who made much of his fortune from his sports shops, Sports Division, which he sold to JJB Sports in the 1990's) with an estimated wealth of over...
Build it where they already are
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...
Legacy fundraising online research
Last year I was lucky enough to recruit Hugh Stockhill to Bluefrog. For those of you who don't know him, Hugh is our legacy guru. He ran the legacy operation when I was head of fundraising at the YMCA and continued in that position for another...
Even if you build it, they might not come
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...
Results on credit crunch copy vs normal copy test
This is a quick heads up on one of the tests we've been involved with on the effect of directly talking about the credit crunch in DM packs. Same packs, same projects, same asks – but one version placed emphasis on the effects of the economic downturn. The other pack simply...
The Essentials
Crack the Code to Regular Giving: Insights, Strategies, and a Special Giveaway!
‘Tis Halloween. Keep to the light and beware the Four Fundraisers of the Apocalypse!
Why do people give? The Donor Participation Project with Louis Diez.
A guide to fundraising on the back of a postcard
What does the latest research tell us about the state of fundraising?