Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Eminence vs Evidence In Fundraising – Part 3: ‘How’ And ‘Where’?

I noted in Part 1 of this series that “our trade won’t transform from its current eminence-based state to one more evidence-based overnight. In fact, the path to empiricism and scientific proof will be long and rocky. And plenty of disagreement, tension, name-calling, or worse will mark the journey.” Beyond the usual battles involving egos there […]

Learn More July 31, 2017

104 Mobile Marketing Facts

Are you reading this email on a mobile device? Industry stats would suggest that 7 out of 10 of you are. That’s right, 69% of emails these days are opened on mobile devices That said, I’d still like to fantasize that most Agitator readers are comfortably seated at your desks, morning coffee readily at hand, taking […]

Learn More July 28, 2017

Just this once…: A way to defeat mental accounting

Since there have been stats on such things, Americans have given two percent of GDP (plus or minus a tiny amount). And we are likely to be in that box, because of mental accounting, until we do something about it. Fortunately, there’s a solution. What is mental accounting? You can spend money on anything. Economists […]

Learn More July 27, 2017

Eminence vs Evidence In Fundraising – Part 2: What is “Proper” Research

Judging from readers’ Comments to Part 1 of this series there’s a truly felt need and desire for collecting — and sharing — proper fundraising research and findings. Two questions arise. Just what is ‘proper’ research? And, ‘how’ can this information best be shared? What Is ‘Proper’ Research? The definition of what constitutes ‘proper’ research […]

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Eminence vs. Evidence In Fundraising–Part 1: Emerging from the Dark Ages

Slowly, ever so slowly, fundraising is emerging from its Dark Ages of reliance on myth, tribal wisdom, and so-called ‘best practices’. For generations, fundraising ‘know how’ has been driven by anecdotes and passed-along rules of thumb largely free of any empirical or scientific validation. Examples of our trade’s reliance on received wisdom abound. “Mail more, […]

Learn More July 26, 2017

Vice Cream

My second video-inspired post of the week is triggered by an enthusiastic review of Vice Cream’s marketing campaign by Melissa Ward at Target Marketing, for her regular Friday “What were they thinking?’ feature. Of course, Melissa’s review itself is delivered by video. But wait, it’s really Vice Cream’s own video (barely 2 minutes) that I want you to watch and, […]

Learn More July 25, 2017