Award-Winning Blog


Three free Webinars in September 2016

Not only are we humans irrational, but we are irrational in predictable ways, with biases baked into our brains’ operating systems.  Behavioral science can get more people to do better things without force or coercion – simply designing better choices can make a big difference. These set of three free Webinars will address how to […]

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Limited Seating Webinar: Tapping the Power of Behavioral Science

If you’re really serious about growing your organization, you must focus on answering this one question: Why do donors do what they do? Unless you can empirically answer that question you’ll continue to be stuck with inefficient, scratch-the-surface guesswork, incremental testing to nowhere, and the oxymoron ‘flat-growth’. Today, the answers to this question of ‘why’ […]

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A New Fundraising Classic

This morning the publisher officially released Data Driven Nonprofits, a book I believe will become a classic in our sector. Researched and written by Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud’s Director of Analytics, Data Driven Nonprofits is to the ‘science’ of fundraising what Ken Burnett’s Relationship Fundraising is to the ‘art’ of fundraising. This book is long overdue. Or, […]

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The Season Ahead

For many Agitator readers summer’s over. Next week triggers the starting gun on the sprint to year-end. Our readers in the US will mark the end of summer with this Labor Day weekend. Readers in Canada and Europe have already turned the calendar page to September and noted the shortening of daylight hours. And Agitators […]

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Where are your missing bullet holes?

During World War II, the Allies puzzled about where to put armor on their bombers.  Strategic attacks needed these flying fortresses, but this necessity also made the bombers a prime target. Armor is heavy.  And heavy is flight’s mortal enemy, as anyone knows who has run down the sidewalk wearing a cape flapping their arms. […]

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Summer Dream Becomes Fall Nightmare As RFP Surfaces

Somewhere out there on a beach, in a forest or on some mountain trail there’s a CFO, CEO or new VP for Development making mental notes on the agenda for the fall Board Meeting. And you can bet one of her/his suggestions will be to put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) in hopes of improving […]

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