Award Winning Blog - Agitator

John Haydon (1967-2020): The Courage to Continue

John Haydon, 53, beloved and inspirational fundraising missionary, teacher and coach is dead. A familiar and enthusiastic presence at conferences and online, John offered practical and always-helpful advice and insights on digital marketing and fundraising. From improving a website to making the most of monthly giving and everything in between he never lost focus on […]

Learn More February 17, 2020

The Zero Party Future is Already Here – Proof.

Canvassing is the number one method for acquiring sustainers (according to Target benchmarking). There is a lot of money being spent and a lot of donor loss occurring, especially in the first few months. What to do about it? A lot of forward-thinking brands (e.g. TNC, ACLU, No Kid Hungry, Special Olympics) have been using […]

Learn More February 14, 2020

“Zero Party” Data is the Best Party Data

To recap our previous post, zero-party data draws a distinction between first party data (i.e. data you have based on direct interaction with your supporters) that is voluntarily, willingly shared and that which is passively and (often) unknowingly collected. The latter requires inference and assumption, the former is knowing and understanding. There are three types […]

Learn More February 12, 2020

The Key To Curing Your Fundraising Ailments

Retention concerns? Privacy concerns? Opt-out/opt-in concerns? Regulatory concerns? Making content relevant concerns? All of these concerns can be effectively addressed—and solved whether you’re in a small organization or a large one– by First Party Data and it’s little known sibling Zero Party Data. Too good to be true? Nope. What we’re going to cover in […]

Learn More February 10, 2020

What Is Important to Your Donors? How Do You Know?- Part 3 of 3 on Donor Surveys

Consider this hypothetical but quite illustrative example of what many organizations (and the vendors conducting the work) might do to measure importance. Survey Question: Non-Profit X engages in the following activities. Please rate each based on their importance to you, with “0” being not at all important and “10” being extremely important. Providing clean water […]

Learn More February 7, 2020

Survey Question Design 101- Part 2 of 3 on Donor Surveys

A caveat upfront: Our view is that survey research, especially questionnaire design and analysis is not art but science. This means it is not a subjective interpretation of what is and is not good design and analysis. There are rules from the social sciences and the statistical sciences. Violations are sometimes subtle, sometimes egregious. The […]

Learn More February 5, 2020