Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Batman, Attention, and Why Your Serious Fundraising Is Quietly Invisible

A woman with a prosthetic pregnancy belly boards a crowded train. Researchers recorded how many people gave up a seat. In the control condition, it is just her and an observer. In the experimental condition, everything is identical except a second experimenter, dressed recognizably as Batman, boards from another door and stands a few meters […]

Learn More December 8, 2025

Breastfeeding, Buttons and Fundraising Tradition

Have you ever wondered why women’s and men’s buttons are on opposite sides? I have and file this as yet another useless bit of trivia taking up limited space in my brain. Many sorta, kinda plausible theories have been spun up over the years on why: Breasfeeding. Right-hand dominant mothers cradling a baby on […]

Learn More December 5, 2025

Do Direct Quotes in Copy Matter?

Consider how these lines differ in form but not in core content: Direct quote, first-person “I was terrified when I heard the diagnosis,” Maria said. Direct quote, second-person “You never expect to hear words like that about your own child,” she said. Direct quote, third-person “He kept asking if he was going to be okay,” […]

Learn More December 3, 2025

The Commitment Model and the Myth of Relationship Fundraising

The sector has spent decades preaching the gospel of “relationship fundraising,” as if donors and charities are star-crossed lovers who just need more quality time together. You know the script: deepen the bond, build the relationship, treat donors like friends. It’s tidy, it’s sentimental, and it’s wrong. The irony is that part of our work […]

Learn More December 1, 2025

You Are Already A Winner

By now you may have seen the story — a woman from Midlothian, Virginia, Carrie Edwards, buys a lottery ticket using ChatGPT and wins $150,000. But the remarkable part isn’t that she won. It’s what she did next. She gave it all away. Carrie, a 68 year old widow, said she heard the voice of […]

Learn More November 27, 2025

The Doom Loop Is a Media Problem, Not a Donor Motivator

If it bleeds, it leads, a cliche if there ever were. The usual interpretation is media force-feeding us a steady diet of misery and we reluctantly choke it down. But the more honest question is the uncomfortable one: are they shoving negativity at us, or are they simply serving what we reliably choose? A Russian […]

Learn More November 24, 2025