Award-Winning Blog


Using your real estate better on confirmation pages

Back in April, I wrote a series on using your real estate better, including tips on reply devices, preheaders, online images, and more. As I’ve been secret shopping nonprofits, I’ve noticed one more in need of real estate improvement: the humble confirmation page. Whether it’s after a donation or a newsletter sign-up or an advocacy […]

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Does Your Fundraising Depend Upon Urgency?

How many people will die, be imprisoned or tortured, sleep on the street, go without water or food, be denied (something, anything) … if you don’t RESPOND TODAY? Most fundraisers have been brought up to stress urgency, urgency, more urgency. In the old days of printed newspapers, weekly newsmagazines and network nightly news, ‘urgency’ might […]

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Serious Fundraisers Take Telemarketing Seriously

“If ever there were a medium where nonprofits consistently get it wrong, it’s telemarketing.” That’s the way I began the post Ring! Ring! Telemarketing Mysteries and Case Studies two years ago. Two years later both Tom and I revisited the subject of telemarketing in Telefundraising Reveals the Pulse and Hanging Up on Your Donors. Both pieces outlined […]

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Fundraising At Its Worst

I know we have some Agitator readers who would probably prefer that Roger and I stay out of politics and keep our political views to ourselves. And we have probably many more readers who are jubilant over Donald Trump’s self-destructing behavior during Sunday’s night’s debate. So terrible that he might cost the Republican Party its […]

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Who’s On The Fundraising Revolution ‘Purge’ List?

There’s no question that if organizations are to thrive in a future marked by fast-moving change a substantial transformation in mindset, methods and metrics is essential. Over and over The Agitator has attempted to deal with why these changes are essential. A sampling our thoughts on Mindset here. Methods here and here. And Metrics here, here […]

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Why I was wrong on mail quantity

Once upon a time (OK, it was back in May; time moves pretty fast in the direct marketing world), I wrote that quantity of mail volume is not the problem that some people thought it was.  Basically, if you had a magic box that you put $1 into and got $1.10 out of it, you […]

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