Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Just Who Benefits From Volume?

A discussion of incentives in direct marketing wouldn’t be complete without talking about that Agitator bugaboo of communication volume. We’ve pointed out how volume has been poorly tested by those who advocate sending more and more …how organizations have found lower volume works better, and that donors hate it (twice). And… twice we emphasized that volume isn’t […]

Learn More July 13, 2018

Compared to what?

Two polls of Britons came out last fall. One said that only 19% of Britons were willing to pay at least 10 billion pounds in EU “exit fees” as part of Brexit. The other said 29% were willing to pay at least 25 billion pounds. Here’s the weird part: these polls don’t conflict. Rather, both […]

Learn More July 12, 2018

Beware the Mismatched Incentives Between You and Your Canvassing Firm

A few weeks ago, Kevin Schulman here ignited a firestorm by suggesting a F2F model where the canvassing vendor does some or all the financing for this new donor acquisition. There were some well-thought-out concerns about the history of financing acquisition and about the viability in today’s marketing. Regardless of on which side of that […]

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Channel Manager Incentives: A Modest Proposal

When a siloed staff is channel-structured and channel-incentivized, the knives come out. Direct marketers who are measured against a net budget goal are loathe to give up “their donors” to major donor prospecting or try to drive them to events. In turn, Events folks want their walkers, bikers, gala goers, etc. to keep walking, biking, […]

Learn More July 11, 2018

What Happens When Your Boss Has Different Goals?

Nonprofits need to exist as long as their issue exists. Most deal with long-term problems. Thus, they need to exist in the long-term. That’s why we preach retention above almost all other things – the donors you have are the ones who will sustain you. As a fundraising professional, it’s your responsibility to think about […]

Learn More July 10, 2018

Be Attentive to Incentive

“Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.” — Charlie Munger, investor, author, philanthropist and Warren Buffet’s irreverent partner at Berhshire Hathaway. In my post on the future of “full service” agenciesI urged that we all give serious thought to re-directing the financial incentives to reward innovation, growth […]

Learn More July 9, 2018