Award-Winning Blog


Agitator Cliff Notes: “Hacking Marketing”

This time, I’m going with a non-fundraising book: Hacking Marketing  by Scott Brinker of Chief Marketing Technologist fame. The idea is how to take the lessons from the agile software development movement and apply them to more traditional marketing. In the book, Scott espouses agile marketing values of: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Responding to […]

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Agitator Cliff Notes: “The Why Axis”

Next up is The Why Axis, by Uri Gneezy and John List, two of the community of economists who work on charitable giving. Roger had already covered one item I had noted back in 2013: that 1:1 matches work just as well as 2:1 or 3:1 matches.  And I talked about how people give more […]

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Agitator Cliff Notes: “Data Driven Nonprofits”

I have a confession to make. I still dog-ear pages. Yes, this goes against my former-library-employee training.  No, I don’t leave books open so it breaks their poor spine; I’m not a total monster.  Yes, I know I can take pictures of the pages and put them on Evernote or Pocket now.  Yes, I can […]

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Can Your Monthly Donors Be Held Hostage?

If you care about the future of your monthly giving program I urge you to take 2 minutes and complete this confidential Agitator Survey. Here’s why. As technology changes and competition increases,  many organizations are switching CRM database vendors and credit card payment processors. SURPRISE!  Many organizations making this switch are discovering to their shock […]

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Cause Connection: A Simple, Underused Donor Identity

The last two days have covered two examples of health charities that have increased their revenues by differentiating based on cause connection.  That is, they looked differently at those who either had the disease they are working to abate or had been treated by their facility and those who didn’t have this type of cause […]

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Would you hire your nonprofit?

Marketing professor Theodore Levitt once remarked that “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”  The idea is that you need to sell results, not the product or features. This is why nonprofit marketing gurus talk about having a “you” focus in your nonprofit.  When you are talking about your […]

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