Increasing Safety for Pigs and Humans Farm Sanctuary and six other animal welfare groups filed a federal lawsuit recently, seeking to make it illegal for slaughterhouses to kill pigs that arrive at the pork-processing plant unable to stand. These potentially sick animals are more likely to harbor and transmit food-borne diseases, which can be dangerous […]

Of all the shiny, new things in the world of direct marketing, the United States Postal Service’s Informed Delivery is one that shows real promise as a new way to make your mail stand out in the crowd.      

  “Hunger doesn’t go away once the holidays are over, in fact, January and February is a time we see a lot of need from those who are really having trouble making ends meet,” said Joanna Warner with the Maryland Food Bank. So MFB is joining forces with the Enoch Pratt Library throughout January, to help […]

Last year, we saw the Trump Bump of 2017 morph into a bit of a Trump Slump of 2019 for marketers and nonprofits. So we were thrilled to see our clients’ supporters wholeheartedly respond to our year-end campaigns to end 2019 on an encouraging note. All but one of Avalon’s clients saw an increase in […]

  Like so many people in Washington, DC, we’ve been waiting impatiently for the opening of The Kennedy Center’s expansion: The REACH. We’ve made donations to the building fund, and watched the progress as this huge undertaking came to completion, moving the boundaries of the Kennedy Center beyond the stages of its iconic building. Much […]

Avalon President Allison Porter and writer Faith Brown Kerr have authored a chapter in the brand-new book: Sustainable Revenue for Museums: A Guide, edited by Samantha Chmelik. Dedicated to “…the volunteers, staff, and board members at museums, historic sites, zoos, aquaria, botanical gardens, and nature parks,” the guide presents a survey of the best practices being […]

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch Speaks Out In June, Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture was named the Smithsonian Institution’s 14th secretary. Recently, CBS This Morning ran a fascinating feature on Bunch and his new memoir: A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, […]

One of the most exciting opportunities in my career as a fundraiser has been Avalon’s partnership with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in building a robust Membership program to support the Museum’s opening in September 2016. Lonnie Bunch, the visionary leader and founding director of the Museum, was recently […]

No denying it: donor acquisition is down across the industry. Nonprofits are acquiring fewer donors, and many are experiencing volatile results and declining response rates, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s Quarterly Fundraising Report (June 2019). The number of donors is down; the number of donors who are giving is down; revenue is down. So what […]

Avalon was recently surprised to learn that one of the digital partners for a client based their fees on a percentage of revenue raised for a client. I’ll start by saying I believe that leading a culture of principled decision-makers is more ethically robust than micromanaging a team of rule-followers. However, the “golden rule” for […]