Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Upward Fundraising Trend Continues

On Monday Tom summarized Pamela Barden’s Fundraising Wellness Check to help you glide more smoothly into the final third of 2015 and begin preparing for 2016. Today, in a nutshell, The Agitator gives The Atlas Of Giving’s forecast for the balance of 2015. Through July 2015 the first half U.S. charitable giving has been exceptionally (and unexpectedly) […]

Learn More September 2, 2015

Algebra For Fundraisers

Awhile back I read yet another exclamation about the rapid rate of online fundraising growth. Fundraising blogs are littered with such exclamations. For example, in this reference to 2014’s fundraising performance: “…online giving grew almost five times faster than overall giving, which grew at 2.1 percent, while online giving grew at 8.9 percent.” Now, don’t […]

Learn More September 1, 2015

Do Or Die Time

We’re now into that ‘do or die’ time of the fundraising year. Surely you’ve laid your plans for the big year-end push … exactly how many mail and email appeals will you squeeze into the next 122 days? How many of those will be in the last 10 days?! Pamela Barden’s recent post — Fundraising’s […]

Learn More August 31, 2015

Engaging Your Donor’s Reptilian Brain

I’m a pretty basic guy. So ‘reptilian’ pretty much sums up my brain activity. So I was thrilled to contemplate what I might learn when I saw this headline on Roger Dooley’s Neuromarketing blog: 7 Ways to Engage Your Customer’s Reptilian Brain. Gotta be some fundraising insights there. And I wasn’t disappointed. 1. Speak to the […]

Learn More August 28, 2015

Fixing Hidden Leaks #5: Online Forms

This is the 5th in a series of posts on identifying and fixing hidden leaks in the donor retention bucket. -The Editors In the field of product development ‘the minimum viable product (MVP)’ is the product with the highest return on investment versus risk. When it comes to nonprofit websites and forms it seems to me […]

Learn More August 27, 2015

Don’t Forget the Port-A-Potty

The Agitator pays little attention to event fundraising. Probably it’s because Tom and I are a bit past our prime marathon days. Additionally, for the fancier events we long ago exchanged our too-tight tuxedos for ‘relaxed fit’ jeans. Or truth be told, maybe it’s because we have absolutely no expertise in this area. Whatever the reason, […]

Learn More August 26, 2015