Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Treat Consumers’ Data With Respect & Deliver Value in Exchange

I sometimes think my phone is listening to me. I mentioned to my wife we need some new luggage for an upcoming trip and lo and behold, what pops up in my Facebook stream? A string of adverts for all wonderful types of luggage – most of which are sadly out my price range… It […]

Learn More May 8, 2019

Turbocharge Your Direct Mail and Digital

In anticipation of the 50thanniversary of the founding of Common Cause, the first of the modern, nonpartisan citizens’ advocacy organizations, I’m going through my files and pulling out the direct mail packages and ads we used to launch the organization. With a war raging in Vietnam, Richard Nixon in the White House, a hopelessly paralyzed […]

Learn More May 6, 2019

The two common threads of mid, major, monthly, and planning giving donors

As we’ve discussed, major donors are not born. They are neither spontaneously generated nor conceived, immaculately or otherwise. Rather, they come from your existing donor file and supporter rolls. And they exist at the intersection of high commitment to your cause, high ability to give, and high desire to give with a large gift. Neither […]

Learn More May 3, 2019

Understand Your Donors Based on Their Behaviours and Identity

‘If I’d asked my customers what they wanted they’d have said a faster horse.’ widely attributed to Henry Ford In our recent Supporter Journey White Paper, we talked about common insight traps that many fundraisers fall into when planning supporter journeys. We’ve all been seduced by the siren calls of personas, demographic profiling and typing […]

Learn More May 1, 2019

The Power of Wow!

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of visiting Walt Disney World in Florida with my wife and (then) eight-year-old daughter. If I was to describe and score the day, with 10 being highest, it would go something like Waking up super early and getting the kids into the car 5 Queuing for […]

Learn More April 29, 2019

Takeaways From the 2019 M+R Benchmarks Study

Yesterday, on the perfect date, M+R published its 2019 online benchmarking data; it’s well worth a read. Some of the data that jumped out at us: Online giving was close to flat, only up 1%. While this fits with the general “where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?” concerns about overall […]

Learn More April 26, 2019