Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Starting Over #11: Knowing WHAT And WITH WHAT To Communicate

A key driver of donor commitment and loyalty is the donor’s perception of just how effective your organization is in achieving its mission. No one buys a Chevy because GM needs the money. By the same token, donors don’t give because your organization has a need to balance its budget or meet your quarterly numbers. Although many […]

Learn More September 14, 2016

You Choose

Two emails arrived today in my in-box, competing for attention. The first was the first exhortation I’ve received so far to get ready to participate in this year’s Giving Tuesday. It was from MobileCause (who usually sends cool stuff) inviting me to a webinar titled “Supercharge #Giving Tuesday”. The second was my regular ‘fix’ from […]

Learn More September 13, 2016

Erode Your Way to Better Year-End Giving

Seth Godin, in a post titled Erosion, correctly notes that “While it’s tempting to imagine that the world changes via sudden shocks, that our culture is shifted by dramatic changes in leadership, that grand gestures make all the difference … “It turns out that our daily practice, the piling up of regular actions, the cultural […]

Learn More September 12, 2016

Because Of You

Here’s one of the best email subject lines to hit my in-box in a long time … What can I add, except to say that, once I opened the email, Charity:Water indeed delivered the right message, in this case a ‘thank you’ to its volunteers, as usual with a video. Tom

Learn More September 9, 2016

When A/B testing gets a D

A few weeks ago, I talked about an A/B test that showed significant results even though there was no difference between A and B, just random chance. But that’s not the biggest challenge with AB testing. Don’t get me wrong, AB testing is better than no testing. We have to keep testing and working to […]

Learn More September 8, 2016

Another Nugget From The Lapsed Donor Mine

We’ve recently had some very informative Agitator posts and commentary from practitioners regarding best approaches to lapsed donors. I don’t want those insights to get lost in the summer doldrums. Start here to review. In particular, I want to draw attention to the Comment of Chip Heartfield, who thankfully shared some hard data on the bequest […]

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