Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Make Em’ Feel Sad or Hopeful?

There is a lot of misinformation out there about the role of emotion in fundraising. The misinformation ain’t at presidential politics level but still, off the mark. There is research and lots of test results in a vacuum that’ll show negative emotions “work”. The social science explanation is that a negative emotion like sadness invokes […]

Learn More November 10, 2023

Your Awareness Problem and What to Do About It

All but the largest charity brands are mostly unknown by most people. We all fish in the same pond for the same donors over and over. And most fundraising professionals believe a dollar not spent on conversion is a dollar wasted. But how to break out of the doom loop of rising costs, lower performance […]

Learn More November 8, 2023

Do You Have a GoodHart?

Columbia University recently skyrocketed from #18 to #2 on the US News college rankings. They spent lots of time and energy understanding the ranking metrics and methodology and then, they, well…lied. One of its own math professors confirmed as much. Columbia claimed 96.5% full time faculty, real number more like 74%. A 6:1 student to […]

Learn More November 6, 2023

Giving Tuesday 2023: Tips and Hacks

Over the years we’ve offered many tips (as in Try Dying for Giving Tuesday) and many admonitions (see Avoid the Snoringly Generic Approach to Giving Tuesday) Most recently, Kevin’s 2023 entry weighed in with Livng Dusday our study of 573 Giving Tuesday emails scored on meeting (or not) […]

Learn More November 3, 2023

Livng Dusday

Over the last two years we’ve collected 573 Giving Tuesday emails. Here’s a lexical analysis that categorizes email subject lines and assigns Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness scores. Why do those scores matter? These are our core, psychological needs. If my brief interaction with your brand leaves me feeling need satisfied then you’ve created an internal […]

Learn More November 1, 2023

How Do Donors (Not) Open The Mail?

Like everyone, I’ve got a habitual, auto-pilot process for managing the physical mail. And since I, like many a reader, am on a million and one seed lists and donate to charities I receive a #$@% ton of charity mail. Plus, my family has what seems a daily supply of last-mile delivery from online, consumer […]

Learn More October 30, 2023