What is an Agent of Good?

And Agent of Good is someone like you. You exist in the world to make positive change, you live your life guided by the principals of being a good human and the desire to make some sort of difference in this world.

You are an Agent of Good if you love what you do, as difficult as it is sometimes, and you love to work with others – not to make yourself look better – but you know your weaknesses and can admit that the help of someone else will make the end product far better.

We are Agents of Good and – so are you.

Before I go much further, if you are a subscriber to The Naked Idea:

1: You are obviously an Agent of Good so you must click here NOW and enter in your email on the right side. I do NOT want to lose you. Go ahead. I can wait.

2: I want to thank you for subscribing and hope that you will follow me along to my new blog.

The Naked Idea was created out of a desire to talk about fundraising simply and honestly. No hidden cards, no rope-a-dope, no bait and switch. It was fueled by the need to acknowledge and comment on the good and bad that is taking place in our industry. And obviously, it was a marketing device for my design studio Idea Design.

But I’ve know for a while, I wanted to go further than that and so began the building of Agents of Good. If that’s all you need to know then please, before you go, please click here now and register your email so you keep getting the blog posts. But if you want more, keep reading.

Agents of Good was created out of the desire to do more. To do more for the charities that needed it because what they were getting (or weren’t getting in many cases) was NOT good enough.

First off, Agents of Good love to collaborate and work with others. That’s why I work so closely with Jen Love and Mark Haak, my two other partners. That is also why we work so closely with the charities and agencies who have already seen and acknowledged how much stronger and better everything we do comes as a result of sharing and working together. As it has been said, all ships will rise together. We will all share in the victory, we will all learn from the failures, but no matter what happens, we will be in this together.

Together. Everything we do together will be better and it will be stronger.

Agents of Good was a necessity because the way some charities are working with consultants or agencies is failing.

People like you who work day to day in our sector and are tired of paying too much for not a whole lot of result. People like you, who want to be listened to, and who are made to feel like their opinion matters. People like you, who want to be a part of something bigger and more fulfilling.

Those of you who are nodding – you are Agents of Good. And we need you. We want you! I want you to come on over to Agents of Good now and exclaim “I am an Agent of Good too!”

Agents of Good is a club, and an exclusive one at that.

Not everyone qualifies. But I have a feeling that if you are still reading this and you can acknowledge that this for you is not a job. If you can acknowledge that you don’t “work” in this sector – you live in it, if you can acknowledge that making change, big and small every day is a REALLY F’ing exciting thing and you LOVE being a part of that… if you can acknowledge that you do this thing called “fundraising” everyday to leave something better behind than when you started… you are an Agent of Good and we need you and we want you.

Please join us now. Join the club and come help us make a difference.

One last note: this will be my last blog post from The Naked Idea so please sign up over at the Agents of Good blog to keep getting our blog posts.

Thank you for reading.

Another month past.

I have started blogging on a more regular basis as well as adding some video posts in here and there which have really been awesome to make. Also this month, we published the most popular post to date this last month – check out and hopefully join in on the VANILLA SUCKS campaign.

Here is a look back through July and I would like to ask is to please forward posts along you find interesting to your colleagues and let me know what sorts of articles you would like to see more of, or comment on the blog or tweet my posts – it all helps and I really appreciate it – Thank you!

July 6, 2009 – Are you kidding?

“…and these blogs, written by so called experts… why should I give a flying crap? Who cares what you think? Stop harassing me with your twitter address and latest blog post…” I listened in silence to a former colleague pontificate about her opinion on social media. I’m thinking, ‘Are you kidding?’

July 13, 2009 – Who stole the “Fun” in fundraising?

“When did everyone become so serious about fundraising? I mean I kind of get it – we are in a recession, people are worried about their jobs, family, lives… it’s the same for all of us. But when did we stop having fun? When did we stop enjoying what we do?”

July 16, 2009 – Twitter and Tweetdeck

“A lot of people ask me how I use twitter or what application I use so I decided to do a quick two minute tutorial to help you out. You can get tweetdeck right here and it’s free! check it out.”

July 20, 2009 – Vanilla sucks

“Finishing up Seth Godin’s “Tribes”. He tells the story of the unicorn in the balloon factory… racing through and disrupting the status quo. It disrupts the stability. Not for the sake of it, but because the status quo is so vanilla.”

July 22, 2009 – The “Vanilla Sucks” Campaign

“I’ve been really happy with people’s responses on twitter, here on the blog, over at linkedin to the Vanilla Sucks message from Monday. If somehow you missed it - feel free to check it out.”

July 27, 2009 – Direct Mail Tip #1

“I’m not actually sure that this is the first time I’ve published a tip about direct mail – but it IS the first time I used a video to do it… This is a quick video showing how you need to think about what you are mailing your donors from the very get go.”

July 28, 2009 – Direct Mail Tip #2

“Today’s tip is about my favourite topic in Direct Marketing: Testing. If you are spending the money to send mail out to your current donors or to potentially new donors – you should be testing something every single time. No testing = no learning.”

July 29, 2009 – Direct Mail Tip #3

“Coupons. You know – the thing donors use to give your charity money? Is there a more important piece in the direct mail piece? I sadly see laser and fulfillment taking over 50% of the space for their codes and lasering. When it comes to coupons, bigger sizes and having more space for the donors to respond is always better folks.”

July 30 – Direct Mail Tip #4

“Taglines – a simple line that can make or break your package. Will it get opened or thrown in the recycling bin? Make sure you get this part right!”

July 31 – Direct Mail Tip #5

“ “You”. Aside from “thanks”, “you” is likely one of the most important words in your direct mail letter. And that’s “you” as in ‘you the donor’. Get out your highlighter folks.”

Thanks for reading and for leaving your comments.