Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Why You Should Never Listen to Someone Like Me About Behavioural Science

I’m a proud fundraiser. But I feel deep shame and embarrassment about terrible advice I’ve shared in the past concerning the application of behavioural science. Don’t get me wrong, if I’d been strapped to a lie detector and asked if I genuinely thought I was helping I’d have passed. But sincerity isn’t accuracy. Like so […]

Learn More October 28, 2020

A Missing Ingredient To Raising More Money – Donor Personality

Imagine running a digital ad or doing a list select for the mail and only being able to select a single attribute or audience parameter – e.g. age, geography, political affiliation. My bet is most fundraisers would probably choose an attribute from Facebook or Google or a data co-op that indicated past charitable behavior. Now, […]

Learn More October 26, 2020

Pumpkin Pie and the Recipe for Year-End Giving

Lots of fundraising sin and excuses are gonna be assigned this year to the pandemic. Not the least of which will be the failure to adequately prime the stewardship pump for year-end giving. “We just didn’t have the budget” …” Didn’t want to bother our donors.” …” The board wouldn’t let us.” And on and […]

Learn More October 23, 2020

Charitable Giving Up Dramatically in 2nd Quarter. PLUS, a Bonus for Agitator Readers

The fundraising hand wringers and bed wetters had a pandemic field day when the 1st Quarter 2020 Fundraising Effectiveness Report (FEP) was released in in June announcing a 6% decline or $25 billion in lost revenue for nonprofits mainly attributable to a notable drop in individual giving in March. BUT….at the time, some optimism poked […]

Learn More October 21, 2020

Advance Notice: Online Course– The Science of Supporter Motivation

For several years we’ve been reporting the research and results of pilot projects conducted by the behavioral scientists at DonorVoice. Charities around the world have seen improved conversion, increased value and improved retention. Quite frankly, although their results have been more than impressive, for most fundraisers applying the principles behind these successes is not recipe […]

Learn More October 19, 2020

Myth Busting: Trust in Charities is NOT Declining

We’ve busted many a myth, including: MYTH: Ask more = make more. BUSTED: Never the full story and often wrong. Most often the practice shifts dollars forward and creates significant irritation (through volume) that directly decreases retention and donor value. The myth represents a grossly oversimplified ‘formula’ that violates the maxim, make things as simple […]

Learn More October 16, 2020