Award Winning Blog - Agitator

All Fundraisers Must Be Brand Builders

The industry trendline is well worn – fewer and fewer people giving. The saving grace has been those left giving more. This is hardly a winning strategy. Your only path to sustained growth comes from increasing the percentage of prospects that know you. There’s a huge chasm in likelihood to donate and lifetime value between […]

Learn More June 26, 2024

The Anatomy of a Successful Call

Have you ever had a conversation with the other person dominating the talk time? How about one where the other person didn’t ask you any questions? Contrast that with a balanced conversation, one where you and the other person talked about equally and the talk sequence was you, other person, you, other person, etc.. This […]

Learn More June 24, 2024

Unlearn What You Have Learned, You Must

Syntax is the way we place words in a sentence. The simplest, clearest formulation is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), “The dog chased the cat”. Yoda uses a very complicated, awkward syntax called an anastrophe, placing the object and the verb before the subject. Simple is better, right? Use active voice, not passive, right? Every rule ever written […]

Learn More June 21, 2024

Beyond One Size Fits All For the Win, Again…

Our choices are expressions and reflections of who we are. I won’t pay as much attention to your fundraising message if it doesn’t reflect who I am. And since people are different, your fundraising needs tailoring to match those varied reflections. Most readers will probably agree with this statement and yet, the infinity problem stands […]

Learn More June 19, 2024

2 Years After Dobbs: The Landscape of Support for Both Sides

In 1973 Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co. launched the first direct response campaign for the National Rights Action League (NARL,) now named Reproductive Freedom for All . That was the year Roe v. Wade was decided. That was also the time 51 years ago when women could not […]

Learn More June 17, 2024

Grade Level Belongs In School, Not Copywriting

Writing should reject all amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men delivered so many things, almost in an equal number of words . . .a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness: bringing all things as near the plainness, […]

Learn More June 14, 2024