Welcome ABD Direct’s Blog, Fundraising Forward. Fundraising Forward is where we share trends, events, and stories from our team with the wider direct response community. We’d love for you to join us on our journey to move Fundraising Forward by subscribing to receive our posts directly in your inbox.
Listening to your donors is one of the hallmarks of any successful grassroots fundraising program. We are increasingly prioritizing quantitative and qualitative research to determine what issues nonprofit and political donors care about most, how they are reacting to their donor experience, and how their...
Read MoreFinding new donors feels as if it’s never been harder. Rising ad costs, shrinking grassroots donor pools, and increased competition in inboxes have forced nonprofits to rethink how they grow. For years, email list building relied on ad platforms like Meta and Google, but those...
Read MoreAt ABD Direct, we believe the strength of our fundraising community lies in collaboration — in sharing ideas, exploring new strategies, and “lifting all boats” in the pursuit of successful fundraising campaigns. This October, our team had the privilege of contributing to that mission in...
Read MoreWhen ABD Direct launched our Generative AI Use Framework one year ago, we joined many others in setting clear ethical and practical guidelines around how we were willing to use emerging AI tools. As with any new technology, we felt responsible for creating a framework...
Read MoreThe last few weeks have been “interesting,” and some frequently asked questions from many of our clients have included: What are our donors thinking as they live through a national “chaos strategy”? How should we be rethinking our messaging strategy to meet our donors where...
Read MoreHow are you holding up? Today marks the end of what has felt like an inordinately long election season. We are all—justifiably—exhausted and anxious about the day ahead and the weeks to come. Some have recently described their feelings as “nauseously optimistic.” We thought that might...
Read MoreWhat keeps you up at night? It’s a question we often ask the organizations with whom we work. The answer helps us zero in on “where it hurts,” and always points us to the most critical objectives, particularly as we start a new relationship. Applying that question...
Read MoreTechnology has posed significant challenges and opportunities for nonprofits before, sparking innovation and change for direct-response fundraisers. Today, we stand at a similar crossroads with the emergence of generative AI. Recently The Nonprofit Alliance’s (TNPA) Direct Response Fundraising Counsel (ADRFCO) convened a roundtable discussion at...
Read MoreABD Direct announced that Kim Daley has joined the agency as Creative Director. Kim spent 13 years on the development team at Doctors Without Borders before starting her own creative firm consulting with a broad range of non-profit and advocacy organizations. Kim will help to...
Read MoreEvery direct response fundraiser will be quick to admit that the last four years have been challenging and tumultuous, so it should come as no surprise that our donors feel the same way. We knew Donald Trump would be like no president ever, yet the...
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