Award Winning Blog - Agitator

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. […]

Learn More September 1, 2016

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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Losing Donors Through Your Donate Page

In The Hidden Cost of Complexity I noted that given a choice, the harder something is to use, the less people will use it. The more difficult something is to read, the fewer people will read it. Our sector spends millions and millions on making things more complex and only a tiny amount understanding how […]

Learn More August 31, 2016

More Gold For The Lapsed Donor Mine

In yesterday’s Neglected Gold Mine of Lapsed Donors I closed with two questions: What are you doing to find out why your donors are leaving? And what are you doing to get them back? Although no one responded to the ‘why’ question, three experienced veterans and pros were the first to respond to the ‘what’ […]

Learn More August 30, 2016

The Neglected Gold Mine of Lapsed Donors

I’m glad Tom raised the issue of ‘lapsed’ donors in his post, When To Give Up On A Donor. The issue of seemingly inactive or financially unproductive donors receives to little serious attention. In the direct response part of the trade, ‘lapsed’ donors are too often mechanistically shoved into various RFM buckets with little understanding […]

Learn More August 29, 2016

I’m Dead, Since 2003

Yesterday’s post, When To Give Up On A Donor, kicked off a good discussion of how to approach lapsed donors. And I want to preview … Roger has written a spectacularly thorough post on that subject which we’ve scheduled for Monday. It’s an entire mini-course with a treasure of pertinent links. A post you’ll want […]

Learn More August 26, 2016