Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Before the Year-End Feeding Frenzy, Try Saying Thank You

The annual year-end fundraising migration is about to begin. Soon, vast herds of appeals will thunder across the digital Serengeti plain, pursued by matching-gift challenges, blinking countdown clocks, crimson exclamation points, and breathless warnings that civilization has only 11 minutes left. Donor mailboxes will groan, inboxes will beg for mercy. “Urgent” will be deployed so […]

Learn More September 21, 2026

Did Your Fundraising Become an Excel Table with a Budget?

Over the last twenty years, marketing effectiveness has fallen sharply. Campaigns, ads, and fundraising appeals are moving fewer people to act, even as budgets and frequency continue to rise. The pattern is unmistakable. It’s not just that everything looks and sounds the same; it’s that much of what’s being repeated is no bueno. Almost nine […]

Learn More September 16, 2026

Election Night Is Not a Strategy Meeting

It’s 11:47 on election night November 3rd. A fundraiser named Susan is sitting alone in the office conference room, half a sandwich beside her laptop and coffee long since gone cold. She’s has been told not to write anything until the organization knows what happened in this year’s mid-terms. Nobody knows what happened. The […]

Learn More September 14, 2026

The Segmentation Should Depend on the Question

It’s a simple question, which pair belongs together? The two older white men are an obvious pair. So are the two younger Black women. Group them by age, race or gender and the rows make perfect sense. But the man in the upper right and the woman in the lower left also belong together. Both […]

Learn More September 11, 2026

The Fundraising Coin Trick Doesn’t Add Up

In 1938, entertainer Eddie Cantor asked Americans to send dimes to President Roosevelt to fight polio. They responded with 2.68 million of them, flooding the White House mailroom and giving the March of Dimes its name. The direction of travel seems rather important, people sending their money to the cause. At some point, a fundraiser […]

Learn More September 9, 2026

They’re Not Leaving the Work. They’re Leaving the Workplace.

She has a laptop, a revenue goal nobody asked her opinion on, half a database, and a board development committee that is extremely supportive — provided nobody asks them to pick up a phone and call a donor. Her organization cut two positions last year. The work didn’t get cut. It landed on her, on […]

Learn More September 7, 2026