Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Tom Ahern Wants To Know … And So Should You

Lots of great questions and comments popped up in response to The Dangerous Dictum of “Mail more. Make more”. Especially appropriate was a question by Tom Ahern: “Is there a bottom line for various sized groups?” Of course, as other commenters noted, there are different approaches depending on the organization or type of organization. For […]

Learn More February 1, 2017

Bring It On!

It’s terrifically gratifying to see the public abhorrence to President Trump’s idiocy regarding immigrations and refugee bans, the environment, family planning and abortion services … and he’s barely getting started. [Sorry if you’re on Trump’s wavelength on these issues, but I can’t think of a less inflammatory word than ‘idiocy’, and The Agitator is, after all, about agitating.] […]

Learn More January 31, 2017

Do You Want To Be Wanted?

Would you believe it took a study to discover we want to be wanted?! That’s right, the global ad agency, Wunderman, commissioned a study with Penn Schoen Berland that found that 79% of consumers in the US and 72% in the UK between the ages of 18-65 want brands to actively demonstrate that “they understand and […]

Learn More January 30, 2017

Cats And Dogs And Donors

In one of his most clever and amusing posts ever, What my cat taught me about fundraising, fundraising creative Jeff Brooks gives us an important warning about relationships built upon delusions. He notes that the delusions he and his cat have about each other — the cat thinks Jeff’s a cat, and Jeff thinks the cat […]

Learn More January 27, 2017

And yet it moves: Galileo on mail quantity

It is the fate of glass to break. Likewise, dogmas. Galileo knew it. Whether or not he actually said “and yet it moves” after recanting the heresy that the earth moves around the sun*, he knew that knowledge, like life or science, finds a way. I have believed the one about “mail more, make more” for most […]

Learn More January 26, 2017

The Dangerous Dictum Of “Mail More, Make More”

I love home remedies and old folk tales. They have their place in the Farmer’s Almanac and on embroidered wall hangings, but they’re grossly over-used and too often accepted as ‘truth’ or ‘best practices’ in fundraising. Perhaps no myth is potentially more dangerous for the long-term health of an organization than the clichéd dictum: “Mail […]

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