Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Second Chance to Tap Hidden Gold Mine

When the pandemic struck I’m sure lots of folks wished like hell they had a monthly giving program in place. Sure would be nice to have a regular, predictable source of revenue in these trying times. The Agitator is a big believer in second chances. (Actually, given the quantity of posts we’ve done on monthly […]

Learn More June 12, 2020

Remembering Jaap Zeekant

Jaap Zeekant, a pillar of Dutch and international fundraising died on May 28 at age 69. Beyond the flash and recognition of the conference speaker’s podium fundraising is a business where the audience doesn’t see or feel the hard work and dedication that goes on behind the scenes. For nearly 40 years Jaap, with his […]

Learn More June 10, 2020

Constantly Mailing Your ‘Best’ Donors Can Make Them Your ‘Worst’

It is inarguable that increasing the number of mailings increases current demand/responses. Send out more mail, get more demand/responses. But, this decision making behind “mail more, make more” lives in the short-term. We estimate the probability (usually crudely with RFM business rules) that a donor will give and then include them or not. Because the selection […]

Learn More June 8, 2020

American Renewal

One of the great advantages of older age is that experience seen in life’s rear-view mirror often provides a helpful understanding of what’s happening as seen through the front windshield of today. What I see today, while deeply disturbing in so many ways, gives me great hope. This is especially true where citizen action and […]

Learn More June 5, 2020

It’s Way Past Time to Raise the Donor-Centric Bar

Why is the norm in which most nonprofits operate based on a premise nobody believes: every donor is the same. Yet, this false premise often serves as the very cornerstone of our work. For example, we run A/B tests with the ‘gold’ standard being met when the test and control group audiences are the same […]

Learn More June 3, 2020

Calculating the Risk of Failure

As the combined horrors of major crisis within major crisis within major crisis piled up last week there was one moment of elation. The triumphant launch of SpaceX’s Dragon and its successful rendezvous with the International Space Station. In the course of the cable news runup to the launch Brian Williams of MSNBC interviewed retired […]

Learn More June 1, 2020