Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Institutionalizing Myopia

Amazon recently scrapped a machine-learning based recruiting tool. Its sin? It was discriminating against women. Why would a machine pick up this very human bias? The machine learned by looking at resumes submitted to Amazon over the previous decade. Since the tech sector skews male, especially for technical roles (see chart from Reuters at right), […]

Learn More October 19, 2018

7 Easy Retention Wins

My local mechanic has a sign over his workbench: “I can explain it to you, but I can’t make you understand it.” Visions of that sign popped up as I worked on The Top Five Barriers to Retention post. That’s when it occurred to me that there are many well-intentioned folks who really don’t have the […]

Learn More October 17, 2018

Top Five Barriers to Retention

We fundraisers love lists. Most are of the “Top Five Steps to Success” variety. Frankly, I’ve always been more intrigued with the “Top Five Steps NOT to Take”. Just as someone who’s just learning to ride a bike wouldn’t attempt to mount it wearing a 40-pound backpack or peddle with flat tires, there are several […]

Learn More October 15, 2018

The Warm Glow Commodity

Some English words have become their own opposites. “Dust” can mean to add dust or remove dust (so, technically, I have dusted my office bookshelves). “Sanction” can mean to permit or to penalize. “Fake news” can be news that is fake or news that one wishes were fake. I mention this because “commodity” is one […]

Learn More October 11, 2018

Why the Retention Resistance?

I shuddered as I read Nick’s post on the latest –and dismally declining—donor retention rates. Here are the sorry figures from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) comparing the first six months of 2018 with those of 2017: Total donors are down 6.6% New donors are down 9.2% New retained donors are down 18% Repeat retained […]

Learn More October 9, 2018

A Sober Reflection on Latest Retention Data

EVERYBODY PANIC! It may not be necessary to run into the streets wailing uncontrollably and rending our garments. But there’s probably a need for more panic about retention than is evident out there. Back in April, we looked at the 2017 Fundraising Effectiveness Project Report. The good news was that retention was up. The bad […]

Learn More October 8, 2018