How to make sure your ideas will work
People often ask me about how we do such great work at Bluefrog. The answer is simple. Years ago, we bought ourselves an OkiDoki 30007 ideas checker. Every idea that we come up with goes into the hopper (1). Computer science then gives it a…
Giving is a game
This one's very left field. It's the weekend, so forgive me. It's a thirty minute presentation by Jesse Schell, at DICE 2010, on the future of games. Maybe you should stop now. You're a fundraiser for a charity. There's nothing you can learn about fundraising…
Think of a number
I’ve just been looking through nfpSynergy’s March 2010 Charity Awareness Monitor survey. It has a fairly large chunk of information on people’s attitudes to fundraising. In short, they tend to find it annoying. They single out telephone and door-to-door techniques as being particularly offensive but…
Engaging entrepreneurial donors with creative thinking
Many years ago, whilst working for the YMCA, we created a very successful donor recruitment and development campaign. The only trouble was that we didn’t have enough cash to realise it’s full potential. Rather than just sighing and waiting for the next financial year, my boss…
What direct mail fundraisers can learn from charity box collections
So much fundraising research concentrates on the relationship donors have with charities via direct mail that we tend to forget that cash is still the most common way to give. The latest data from NCVO / CAF shows that 48% of donors gave cash gifts…
If it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do
Bluefrog's Creative Director, Aline Reed, has been running a competition on her blog. It's taken the form of a fundraising quiz, and last week she focused on the joy of fonts and reversed out copy. I've had a few 'conversations' over the years as I've…
What would make a donor give more to charity?
Back in 2006, a Bank of America / Indiana University study looking at the charitable motivations of high net-worth individuals identified a very simple fact. It’s a fact that at Bluefrog, we see time and time again in our research. …
The twelve tweets of February
The January round up seemed to go down very well, so the tradition continues with my twelve favourite things found on Twitter in February. The same rules apply as before. Everything has something to do with fundraising and everything is credited to the tweeter who…
How did giving to Haiti compare to previous emergencies?
CAF have recently updated their disaster monitor research which looks at long-term patterns of giving to emergency appeals. All figures are for the UK. The key findings are: Just under half of people surveyed gave to Haiti (in comparison to 81% of people who gave…
New research on text giving
I picked up on an interesting stream of tweets from @seanpowell last night. He was attending a US benchmarking presentation from M&R Strategic Services and MobileActive on text messaging. Following the American Red Cross's Haiti text campaign – which resulted in more than one million…
The Essentials
‘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?
How do donors manage their philanthropic budgets?