Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Deliberate Giving?

One. That’s likely the modal number of gift frequency for (cash, one-off) donors on your file. The average gifts per donor per year is ballpark 1.7. Really strong charities are slightly north of 2 and lousy ones are hovering a few tenths below the average. If you get cash donors to give twice per year […]

Learn More October 5, 2020

Need More Sustainers?

How about Telemarketing? More people are answering their phones these days. Contact rates are up. But, it takes more than contacts for TM success, especially if TM success is considered to be more than just conversion rates. You know you need to deliver Lifetime Value. DVCalling, the telemarketing arm of DVCanvass (and sister company to […]

Learn More October 2, 2020

O’Canada. O’Canadian Donors!

In these civically stressed days I’m thinking more and more about Canada from my perch here in Massachusetts. Not just because my Canadian wife is visiting north of the border real estate sites with increasing frequency…nor because I think more frequently about Tom Belford, my Agitator sidekick who’s now safe and sound in New Zealand. […]

Learn More September 30, 2020

Emotion and Fundraising: Will Any Emotion Do?

“People give based on emotion, not facts.” Some version of that statement is sacrosanct in marketing and fundraising. It begs several questions, not least of which is whether emotion is the cause or the goal. We know it to be the latter. But today’s post is to beg another question: what emotion? Will any emotion […]

Learn More September 28, 2020

How Do You Get Conservatives to Care As Much as Liberals About the Environment?

Answer: message to them differently. More specifically, conservatives and liberals can see themselves as equally moral (Identity) but for very different reasons. Much like there is a Big 5 of Personality that is trait-based and predictive of attitudes and beliefs (and in turn, behavior), there is another Big 5 in Morality that, not surprisingly, has […]

Learn More September 25, 2020

The Cheap Money Paradox

The pandemic should cause us all to re-think many fundraising “norms” –notably the value of money and what it means not only to donors but to nonprofits as well. In order to stimulate a Covid-stricken economy the U.S. Federal Reserve (and central banks elsewhere) has dramatically lowered interest rates and promised to keep them low […]

Learn More September 23, 2020