We’re hiring! Office Manager / Book-keeper

September 8, 2010

Are you looking for a job? We’re looking for a part-time Office Manager / Book-keeper to join our growing team here at Ask Direct. You should have at least 5 years experience in a book-keeping or accounts role, excellent interpersonal skills, problem-solving skills and attention to detail. If that sounds like you, and if there’s [...]

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Communicating Environmental Issues Online

September 6, 2010

On Saturday, I spoke at Communicating Environmental Issues Online organised by the European Commission. My presentation was a guided tour of some of the best international examples of online campaigning and fundraising, with a heavy emphasis on the role of social media. Here’s a recording of my presentation: And here’s the slideshow: Environment & Social [...]

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Do you really know your donors? The power of surveys and data analysis.

September 6, 2010

I’m sure you know a bit about them. Like how they don’t like to be mailed too often. And how they’d never read a letter longer than a page and half of A4. And how it would annoy them if you telephoned them, especially if it’s to ask for money. But what are you basing [...]

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Emotion in action. Some examples.

August 9, 2010

I realised after posting the piece below, which I rattled off in a bit of a hurry, that I had intended to, but forgot to, include some examples of brilliant emotional communications. So, here they are. Here’s an ad that Dan Pallotta showed during his fantastic plenary at the Institute of Fundraising’s National Convention back [...]

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Who’s tone-checking your donor communications?

August 2, 2010

I came across Tonecheck the other day (via Mark Little on twitter). It’s a tool you can download that will check your emails for excessive emotions or inappropriate tone of voice. It seems to be geared at helping companies to avoid sending angry or narky emails that could be misinterpreted by customers. Clearly, it could [...]

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Developing Personal Presence – Dublin, September 2

July 22, 2010

We’re pleased to announce the second programme in the training series we’re running in partnership with the Management Centre (=mc). Delivered by Bernard Ross (Director of =mc) this one-day intensive session will help you to develop the ability to make a powerful and memorable impact in small and large groups. One of The Management Centre’s most [...]

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Lessons from Live Aid (Has it really been 25 years?)

July 14, 2010

By chance last night I discovered that yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Live Aid (explanatory link included for any readers under the age of 30). 25 years. A quarter of a century. Wow. There was an interesting documentary on BBC4, Live Aid: Against All Odds about the genesis of the concert. Viewable here if [...]

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Bernard Ross – The Influential Fundraiser – Dublin, July 15

June 2, 2010

We’re delighted to announce that we’re partnering with The Management Centre (=mc) to bring a selection of the very best training for nonprofits to Ireland over the next few months. The Management Centre is the UK’s leading training and consultancy organisation working to transform the results of values driven organisations worldwide. Bernard Ross, Director of [...]

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An Introduction to In Memoriam Fundraising

May 6, 2010

We’re launching our 2010 training programme with a half day seminar on In Memoriam Giving. The seminar ‘An Introduction to In Memoriam and Tribute Giving’ will be led by Kevin Kibble, one of the UK’s foremost experts on Tribute and In Memoriam fundraising. It will take place on Thursday 27th May in the Morrison Hotel, [...]

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“We love our donors!”

April 30, 2010

Why don’t I get charity e-newsletters that look and sound like this? – Subject line: We love our users! – Sent from an actual person, but still identifying the organisation: ‘Katin from Springpad’ – First, BIG, headline: “You’re making Springpad better” This is about me, not about Springpad. This is pretty brilliant. And it’s the [...]

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Strategy Rocks!

April 21, 2010

Myself and Edwina spent yesterday locked in a full day strategic planning workshop with a client. That may sound like your concept of hell, but it was one of the most energising and, dare I say it, exciting days work we’ve had in a long time. Lots of strategic planning is, frankly, dull, worthy and [...]

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Six things Stephen Patrick Morrissey can teach us about fundraising

April 12, 2010

Like many one-time shy, spotty teenagers of a certain age, I was a big Smiths fan. I had the t-shirts. I had the albums (and the bootlegged copies – wasn’t it such a shame that home taping killed music?). And I once nearly made it to one of their gigs in Dublin. And then they [...]

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Direct mail 2009: Response rates and average gifts up

March 24, 2010

I’m aware that the data set is limited here, and that there’s an element of patting ourselves on the back with this, but we’ve analysed the response data to all the donor direct mail campaigns that we worked on in both 2008 and 2009, and here’s what we found: Despite the economic crisis, response rates [...]

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And the answer is…

March 5, 2010

… I would expect that the second pack – the one in the envelope – did much better than the first. As I said earlier, there are only a limited number of things you can really test in direct marketing, but some tend to have a greater bearing on results than others. So, changing the [...]

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The Friday Fundraising Quiz

March 5, 2010

A couple of weeks ago, @AlineReed started up a Friday Fundraising Quiz on her blog, Bluefrog Creative, and following some twitter chats, it’s become a rotating event. And this week, when the music stopped, I was left holding the quizmaster’s hat. So here goes. We put a lot of emphasis on testing. One of the [...]

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