Learn more about analytics and research best practices, as well as real world examples and solutions for nonprofits.

The Force Awakens?

theater image I’ll be darned.

Direct mail acquisition seems to be making a comeback.

OK, perhaps not to the degree of a Star Wars $250MM opening weekend comeback. But as I am reviewing recent acquisition (and reactivation of deeply lapsed donors) results, I was pleasantly surprised to see that new donor (and reactivated donor) counts aren’t falling.

Even better news is that retention of Second Year donors are improving for the first time since Mark Hamill’s last film any of us can recall seeing (which any fan would know is the 1978 film Corvette Summer).

The question is whether this comeback will last, or is it a momentary pause in direct mail’s inevitable demise?

New Blog Series on Artificial Intelligence

by Bill Jacobs | Jun 10, 2025

Everywhere you look these days there are articles and posts forecasting the new world order that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will bring to our nonprofit world. These forecasts are both positive (AI will make our sector more efficient and economical) and negative (AI...

The Privatization of the United State Postal Service

by Bill Jacobs | Mar 26, 2025

The current administration has advocated for the privatization of the USPS. This initiative creates a lot of questions and sends a shiver down the spines of development directors for nonprofits that rely on mail appeals to raise a significant portion of their budgets....

The Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN) State of the Sector Survey

by Bill Jacobs | Oct 10, 2024

Our neighbors to the north, ONN, released the results of its 2024 State of the Sector Survey today. Over 1,000 nonprofit organizations in Ontario participated in the study. The ONN results sounded familiarly discouraging: Four-in-10 nonprofit organizations responding...