Award-Winning Blog


A Great Old-Fashioned Major Gift Tool

I love the digital age and all it offers fundraisers today — and what it will increasingly offer in the future. I’m also aware that too many folks avoid undertaking basic fundraising tasks in hopes that some ‘magic app’ will appear that can deliver instant results inexpensively with the click of a mouse. Not gonna […]

Learn More

Roger Craver Live

Well, almost. A Roger ‘re-run’ was featured last Friday on Tony Martignetti’s Nonprofit Radio, emanating from New York City. You’ll never guess what the focus of his interview was … donor retention. Especially for you new Agitator readers, here’s a rare chance to hear Roger address The Agitator’s favorite topic ‘in person’. How to build […]

Learn More

Just A Trump Bump?

I was browsing the latest update on online fundraising trends from Network for Good (via dashboard courtesy of the Chronicle of Philanthropy), which indicates a 21% increase in amount donated online in March 2017 over Mar 2016. Online gifts were up 23.9% and the number of donors was up 22.4%. Not surprisingly, December was the […]

Learn More

Is your online donation experience burning donors?

Back in October, we make the argument that we aren’t retaining donors; we’re burning them. That is, because humans are loss averse, if you want someone to pay attention to an issue, it’s better to talk about avoiding losing something than keeping something. I’m now thinking that the same applies to online donations. Right now, […]

Learn More

Tiny Clues Build Trust

Nothing is more essential to donor commitment and retention than trust. Let’s posit that a donation is a (at least implied) ‘compact’ with a donor that your nonprofit is going to wisely use that person’s contribution to further his or her charitable aspiration or goal. Perhaps not a great deal of consideration of trustworthiness went into giving […]

Learn More

Floss Your Donors

I read Tom’s My Shiny New Gadget while sitting in the dentist’s waiting room. On the one hand he chronicles the rapidly increasing numbers of new nonprofits who are likely to need all the fundamental advice they can get. On the other hand Tom admits he’s bored with basics. Instead he’s intrigued with the findings of neuroscience and how […]

Learn More