Award Winning Blog - Agitator

The Tragedy of the Donor Commons

“Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. … the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another… But this is […]

Learn More June 5, 2018

Are You Missing the Golden Middle?

In 1987 I launched a series of highly successful mid-level giving programs and for years wondered why others weren’t doing the same. So, when Tom and I started The Agitator we began ranting on the subject, urging folks to get on board. For example, hereand here. And so did others like Mark Phillips of BlueFrog with […]

Learn More June 4, 2018

Building lifetime value into your acquisition

There are some people that, like the old EF Hutton commercials, when they talk, you listen. Mary Meeker is one of those people, as one of the lead analysts on online and high-tech issues. To give you some perspective, she managed the Netscape Communications IPO in 1995. Usually when someone says they have 20+ years […]

Learn More May 31, 2018

Freeing Monthly Donor Hostages: Survey Results

In Can Your Monthly Donors Be Held Hostage? we alerted readers that many organizations attempting to switch CRMs or payment processors—or both—are shocked and surprised when the vendor they want to leave refuses to transfer their monthly donors’ credit card or other payment data to the new vendor. Data hostage-taking! We ran an Agitator Survey to get […]

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Don’t Forget the Fundraiser’s Most Basic Tool

Most of us spend so much time focusing on the latest research, the latest book, reports of the latest dynamite campaign that we lose sight of the basic tasks essential for long-term success. The result of ignoring these mundane, seemingly boring tasks and sub-tasks is often disastrous. For example, tomorrow we’ll post the results of an […]

Learn More May 30, 2018

Consent Dies in Your Inbox. But There’s Hope.

Let me guess. This month, your inbox looks more or less like mine below. Your turn to guess. How many of these did I give my consent to? How many did I read or even open? My work relates closely to GDPR. Yet I didn’t bother with any of these. As a sector we’ve been […]

Learn More May 25, 2018