Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Are They Coming for Your Organization?

Just as I was calming down from my rant on tv’s coronavirus carnival barkers I opened a note from Nick Ellinger, who’s now over at Moore seeking asylum after fleeing the commotion here at The Agitator. When Nick writes, I read. Accompanying his note was a piece titled Anti-overhead is anti-charity. It’s a disturbing reminder […]

Learn More May 13, 2020

“We’re All In This Together” is Horseshit

While Walmart, Amazon, Target and dozens of other retail giants are under-paying and under-protecting their “essential” workers and callously sending them off to the ventilators, the rest of us are being numbed at home with a blitz of cynical and shoddy consumer advertising. While low-wage, uninsured food workers, with no real option to stay at […]

Learn More May 11, 2020

Should We Reward Supporters or Not?

Before I answer, let’s take a small step back… As fundraisers, we employ different techniques to motivate people to give. But, as we explained before, there’s good and bad motivation. We can definitely make people give by triggering controlled motivation e.g. if you don’t give, this child will starve. But that’s not the goal. Why? Because […]

Learn More May 8, 2020

The Right Kind of Donor Motivation

Emotionally manipulative messages can backfire because of psychological reactance, that rebellious response people sometimes show when they feel unduly pressured. They may still give in the moment but your donor retention hinges on your ability to create a sense of autonomy in your donors. But how to do that? And can it be measured and […]

Learn More May 6, 2020

Beware of Psychological Reactance

“Tug on donors’ heartstrings…” “Make them feel pain and sorrow… “ “Guilt them into giving…” “We want donors to feel like giving will bring them closer to God’s heart…” “The quickest route to connection is fear and pain…” “By giving, donors will get relief from their emotional discomfort…” If statements like these characterize your approach […]

Learn More May 4, 2020

An Old New Way of Fundraising

(a.k.a. the redemption of telephone fundraising) Now that Covid-19’s forced us all out of face-face fundraising there’s been a rush to pick up the phone again. It makes sense; the similarities between face-to-face channels and voice-to-voice vastly outweigh the differences. If you can’t talk about why your mission matters on the street, in the mall […]

Learn More May 1, 2020