Award Winning Blog - Agitator

How Can the DonorVoice Nudge Unit Help You?

Ok, so what can decision science do for you and your cause? The possibilities are limitless. In fact, there is a whole sub-field within the Decision-Making field dedicated to philanthropic behavior. From the widely known (but not widely practiced!) “identifiable victim effect” to the less known “unit asking”, Behavioral Science could make people feel […]

Learn More September 26, 2018

Introducing the DonorVoice Nudge Unit

What’s your biggest fundraising challenge? What did you set out to solve last year (or the year before, or the year before…) only to be facing it again in 2018? At last ! Behavioral scientists unite to solve your major fundraising problems. Why as a sector are we forever undermined by perennial problems like […]

Learn More September 24, 2018

The Essential Importance of First-Party Data

Nick just sounded the warning bell about the inaccuracy of third-party data. I want to follow up with a more fundamental question: Even if third-party data were more accurate, why would you want it? After all, looking at the Predictably Inaccurate study from Deloitte, when data-brokers had the data wrong and even when people found out […]

Learn More September 21, 2018

Laws, Sausages, and Third-Party Data

More and more fundraisers are falling in love with Big Data. Some use it to create “personas” in hopes of better segmenting their files. Others employ it for wealth screening and prospect research. Whatever use you make of it every data point should move your organization at least one step closer to the donor. Yet […]

Learn More September 19, 2018

The Curious Case of Kimberly Ellinger

We have a phantom member of our family. When we moved into our first house, one of the people who sold us the house was Kimberly something-or-other. We immediately started getting mail for Kimberly Ellinger – her first name, our last. Our best guess is that a mailer assumed she got either married or divorced, […]

Learn More September 17, 2018

Fundraisers I Fear: Part 2– Insufficient Knowledge of Basic Information

In Part 1 I urged all of us to become “expert novices” –fundraisers who have knowledge and confidence but are capable of maintaining a seed of doubt that they may be wrong. Of course, the building blocks of knowledge, skepticism and curiosity must be stacked on top of the rock-solid granite foundation of fundamental fact. You […]

Learn More September 14, 2018