Award Winning Blog - Agitator

A/B Tests Pick Flavors, Not Lift

Thought experiment, turn fundraising off for a year – zip, nada, nothing. What happens? Revenue doesn’t hit zero, it decays. Long-time donors still give, some monthly gifts keep running, bequests arrive. That “baseline” money would come in even if you did nothing for a while. Yet, right now, it’s being credited to fundraising performance. Flip […]

Learn More October 17, 2025

The Focus Group Just Got Fired

I ran a lot of focus groups in a prior life and they were the bane of my existence. People told me I was good at moderating. I wasn’t. My “skill” was tolerating the strange theater of it all, the artificial setting, the too-small snacks, and the polite nodding of strangers paid to opine about […]

Learn More October 15, 2025

The Fundraiser’s New World

Columbus Day is a reminder that exploration and curiosity aren’t the same thing. Columbus wasn’t as curious as he was convinced, setting out to prove an idea, not test one. That’s confirmation bias with better PR. One is always better off assuming that your knowledge base could fill a thimble rather than an ocean. Curiosity […]

Learn More October 13, 2025

Ditch the Buzzword Buffet. Come to IWITOT.

You know the type of conference I’m talking about. The ones where the air is thick with buzzwords, the panels are indistinguishable from a CRM onboarding session, and by the second keynote you’re thinking fondly of dental work. IWITOT is not that. For over a decade, SOFII’s “I Wish I’d Thought of That” (IWITOT) has […]

Learn More October 10, 2025

Does Your Copy Have a Z-Score Problem?

Babe Ruth hit 29 home runs in 1919. Barry Bonds hit 73 in 2001. If you only looked at the number, Bonds wins. But the game changed, longer seasons, smaller parks, livelier balls, and, let’s just say, different nutritional choices. The question isn’t who hit more, it’s who was more extraordinary for their time. That’s […]

Learn More October 8, 2025

Teaching a Monkey to Wear a Tie Doesn’t Make it a Banker

Margaret Thatcher once said, “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.” The same holds for being trustworthy or authentic. If you have to claim it, you’re not it. And if your organization is holding meetings about how to “sound more authentic,” you’re trying to put […]

Learn More October 6, 2025