Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Nudging to Improve Human Experience or Simply to Sound Smart?

There seems to be an obsession with biases lately and by extension, a flurry of consultants and agencies slapping “behavioral science” on their letterhead. While acknowledging biases as real and important to understand, considering biases as the one and only answer is dangerous. When examined solely through distinct biases, human behavior appears to be concrete […]

Learn More January 25, 2021

Donor or Activist?

What makes an activist different from a donor? Too often the former is thought of as a lead-gen exercise to source names to ‘convert’ them to the latter. Activists and donors are different. And while activists often donate that initial act of activism (e.g. the lead-gen petition signing) should not be thought of as a […]

Learn More January 22, 2021

Time Sensitive Alert on Paycheck Protection Program 2.0

We just learned of this FREE webinar on the the new version of PPP taking place TODAY—Thursday at 4:00 p.m . Eastern, 1:00 p.m. Pacific time. This is short notice, but if you register now, even though you can’t attend, a recording and slides from the webinar will be e-mailed to you. BUT ONLY IF […]

Learn More January 21, 2021

On Stupidity

Most fundraisers know about the Pareto Principle—that 80% of an organization’s revenue comes from 20%, or fewer, of its donors. This handy rule of fundraising is a bastardization of the work of the 19th century Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, whose groundbreaking work helped develop the field modern economics with its data-oriented, scientific approach. Last evening […]

Learn More January 20, 2021

Coming to America

No. This isn’t about that “Coming to America”. Although the movie written by and starring Eddie Murphy is always worth a mention. You’ll recall, in that romantic comedy an extremely pampered African Prince travels to Queens, New York, and goes undercover to find a wife. Today we’re focused instead on one of fundraising’s all-time favorite events […]

Learn More January 18, 2021

Pure Nudges, Preference Nudges or Boosts?

Behavioral Science is too often being reduced down to a poor understanding of behavioral economics and an even poorer understanding of nudges, treating them as parlor tricks, akin to visual illusions. Nudges aren’t predictions about what people will do, they are observations. For example, in certain situations people will tend to go with whatever is […]

Learn More January 15, 2021