Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Doggie Bag Of Delight

Before you collapse from the flurry of year-end activity I urge you to spend some time listing the ways you can surprise and delight your donors. Not just around the year-end giving season, but all through 2016 and beyond. Few activities signal how important donors are to your organization than the way you treat them. […]

Learn More December 14, 2015

What Is Your Image Of What Fundraisers Do?

Here’s what I mean. If you had to come up with one photo or graphic or illustration of what a fundraiser does, what would it be? I think Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now has come up with the best I’ve seen so far. I’ll show you in a moment. But before you send your […]

Learn More December 11, 2015

24 Reasons Why Board Members Won’t Ask For Money & What To Do About It

According to his publisher Jerry Panas’ ASKING is America’s top selling fundraising book. Aimed primarily at board members the book is designed to provide helpful advice and motivation to ask for a gift while taking the fear out of the process. And, according to the publisher, all in a 59 minute read. So it figures that […]

Learn More December 10, 2015

Want a good donor experience and better retention? Start with understanding donor identity.

Why do donors give? Seems like a question worth knowing the answer to if you are in the business of trying to affect that giving behavior. One of the main reasons they give has nothing to do with your specific charitable brand but rather, their using your charitable brand to deliver on or otherwise reinforce […]

Learn More December 9, 2015

Does Reason Appeal To Donors?

Most of the advice given to fundraisers — from major gift officers to direct response copywriters — regarding reaching donors properly focuses on emotion. Reaching the heart, not the mind … or at least the heart before the head! And there’s heaps of research on how we humans process experience and information to back up that […]

Learn More

Focus for Fundraisers

Here at Agitator Global HQ we get lots and lots of press releases and requests to cover the next new thing. Payment systems. Crowd funding. Infographics. Video campaigns. Etc. Etc. All this ‘new, best thing’ stuff reminds me of those pesky water bugs that scooted across the surface on the lakes and ponds of my […]

Learn More December 8, 2015