Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Consumers: The New Philanthropists?

We’ve done our share of sounding the alarm lately, from Roger’s post highlighting 23 changes necessary for the future of the sector, to my alert that we could lose more than half our donors in the next decade, to the need for new acquisition approaches. The TL;DR version is that we need to find new […]

Learn More April 3, 2019

April Fools’ Day 2019: Time to Get Serious

Usually we dedicate this first day of the fourth month to the perennial April Fools’ joke intended to remind us that amidst the pranks and laughter there’s usually a nugget of truth. In the words of George Orwell the aim of the joke “is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that […]

Learn More April 1, 2019

Manscaping Your Donor Journey

Dollar Shave Club was built on very strong marketing. They started in 2011 with a viral video about razors and sold for one billion dollars to Unilever just five years later. They are digital natives, builders of a lifestyle brand, and smart content marketers… …with one exception that should sound familiar to us nonprofits. About […]

Learn More March 29, 2019

The Myth of the Average Donor

In Greek mythology, Procrustes was the hotelier from hell. He had a bed where passersby could spend the night. If they were too short to fit the bed, they would be stretched to fit it; if they were too tall, they would have the “excess” lopped off. His sizist reign ended when Theseus (of minotaur […]

Learn More March 27, 2019

Predicting Sustainer Retention

Monthly givers should be like an annuity or bond – an initial investment pays steady dividends over time. In reality, sustainers are great, but they are not Ron Popeil’s “set it and forget it”: there’s far more investment of time and energy required to make sure a donor stays with you for the long-term. What […]

Learn More March 25, 2019

Donor Acquistion: Time for New Approaches

We’ve devoted significant space ( here, here, here and here) emphasizing the importance of tending your Garden of Existing Donors to assure higher retention at a time when, overall, the sector is hemorrhaging donors. BUT…as noted on Monday, even if we can arrest the momentum of the descent in numbers of donors, these actions alone will […]

Learn More March 22, 2019