Award Winning Blog - Agitator

AI, Creativity, and Why Most Prompting Advice Misses the Point

If you read enough LinkedIn posts about AI, you’ll come away thinking the game is about clever prompting. Get the “magic words” right and the model unlocks a hidden chamber of brilliance. Get them wrong and it collapses into gibberish. This isn’t how large models actually work, and a new study on visual generative AI […]

Learn More December 12, 2025

AI Chatbots, Donor Questions, and the Quiet Rules That Govern Trust

A new study looked at what happens when a donor on a charity website opens the chat window to ask a few questions before deciding whether to give. The experiment had three moving parts, Sometimes the responses came from a human donor care agent identified as such Sometimes they came from an AI chatbot clearly […]

Learn More December 10, 2025

Batman, Attention, and Why Your Serious Fundraising Is Quietly Invisible

A woman with a prosthetic pregnancy belly boards a crowded train. Researchers recorded how many people gave up a seat. In the control condition, it is just her and an observer. In the experimental condition, everything is identical except a second experimenter, dressed recognizably as Batman, boards from another door and stands a few meters […]

Learn More December 8, 2025

Breastfeeding, Buttons and Fundraising Tradition

Have you ever wondered why women’s and men’s buttons are on opposite sides? I have and file this as yet another useless bit of trivia taking up limited space in my brain. Many sorta, kinda plausible theories have been spun up over the years on why: Breasfeeding. Right-hand dominant mothers cradling a baby on […]

Learn More December 5, 2025

Do Direct Quotes in Copy Matter?

Consider how these lines differ in form but not in core content: Direct quote, first-person “I was terrified when I heard the diagnosis,” Maria said. Direct quote, second-person “You never expect to hear words like that about your own child,” she said. Direct quote, third-person “He kept asking if he was going to be okay,” […]

Learn More December 3, 2025

The Commitment Model and the Myth of Relationship Fundraising

The sector has spent decades preaching the gospel of “relationship fundraising,” as if donors and charities are star-crossed lovers who just need more quality time together. You know the script: deepen the bond, build the relationship, treat donors like friends. It’s tidy, it’s sentimental, and it’s wrong. The irony is that part of our work […]

Learn More December 1, 2025