Award Winning Blog - Agitator

The Donor Hunger Games: May the Highest RFM Score Win

If people gave because we asked, one-size-fits-all fundraising would be the smartest system ever invented. Put the same appeals on the same calendar and dial up your activity to see generosity roll in. The orginal sin is believing or at least behaving as if you belive asking = getting. Fundraising has two jobs: what we say […]

Learn More June 8, 2026

Your Gift String Should Not Need a User Manual

I got a cold text donation ask for Ukraine relief with this gift string: $120 repairs a damaged roof and broken windows $100 provides psychosocial counseling for one person $295 delivers emergency essentials to a family. There is a version of this that makes sense inside the organization. Someone probably had to get three different […]

Learn More June 5, 2026

Fundraising Keeps Asking Strangers to Act Like Supporters

If the list, offer and package are right, response will follow. Sort of, sometimes, maybe. This fundraising holy trinity leaves out a tiny detail: whether people know who the hell you are. That might sound obvious but obvious can be in limited supply. The chart shows acquisition analysis looking at how much mail went into […]

Learn More June 3, 2026

The Crusonia Donor

University of Chicago economist Frank Knight came up with a thought experiment called the Crusonia plant. It was a miraculous organism. You planted it once and it produced fruit year after year, without labor, maintenance, risk, depletion, or decay. It was meant to be absurd, using the Crusonia to imagine an asset whose value came […]

Learn More June 1, 2026

The Author Is Not to Be Informed

Memorandum To: The Book Launch Committee From: Department of Applied Fundraising Nonsense Re: Promotional strategy for The Volume Trap Classification: Sensitive, because the author is becoming difficult The committee has reviewed The Volume Trap and identified several promotion challenges. First, the book argues fundraising has scaled activity instead of understanding. Second, it suggests more asking […]

Learn More May 29, 2026

13 Years and Still Explaining Basic Arithmetic to Boards

We’ve been writing about “cost of fundraising” as a deeply flawed metric since we launched The Agitator in 2013. Thirteen years. The argument hasn’t gotten more complicated and too many boards haven’t gotten smarter. Let’s try one more time. The Metric That Rewards Shrinking Cost of fundraising — expressed as cents raised per dollar spent, […]

Learn More May 27, 2026