Award Winning Blog - Agitator

I Hate The Way We Fail New Fundraisers

Whenever I’m at a loss to describe a problem I turn to the dog-eared volumes in my fundraising library for help. Currently– like many others– I’m wrestling with the issues of turnover and the levels of skill in our trade. More and more nonprofits (47% more in the past decade) are in need of “fundraisers”. […]

Learn More June 28, 2018

Why I Hate the Donor Pyramid

All pyramids are lies: They have a dishonest scheme named after them. They will not keep your razor blades sharp or apples fresh. They messed up the four food groups. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs isn’t really true (there are fundamental needs, but there isn’t a hierarchy and people pursue different “level” needs simultaneously). Even the […]

Learn More June 27, 2018

Why I Hate Sugarcoating Issues

I was looking for studies that had been done on what type of images are effective in nonprofit direct marketing. So I headed over to Google Scholar and searched for “use pictures fundraising appeals.” You would have thought I was searching for snuff films. Here are some of the titles of journal articles that faced […]

Learn More June 26, 2018

Rage Donations: Give Before You Explode!

Trump’s politically-inspired human rights horror show featuring state-sponsored kidnapping of refugee children and the torture-by-trauma of their imprisoned parents has triggered a tsunami of rage –and rage giving — worth noting, As was the case after the president’s announcement of the Muslim Ban and his other post-election actions, a flood of responses –financial and in-kind– […]

Learn More June 25, 2018

Pairing metrics for fun and (non)profit

On Tuesday, I talked about how Simpson’s paradox means you shouldn’t use just overall retention as a metric. Rather, you want to pair it with subgroup metrics so someone doesn’t achieve their retention goals by cutting off acquisition. I’ll generalize from that. As Newton would have said if he were a direct marketer, each metric […]

Learn More June 22, 2018

Who are your disaster donors?

We often talk about donor identities that make someone more valuable or easier to acquire, whether it’s direct connection to a disease organization, medical professionals to organizations that help sick kids, those who receive services, or many others. But what about the donor identities that make someone less valuable? Yes, they exist. And they are […]

Learn More June 21, 2018