Award Winning Blog - Agitator

No Heavy Lifting

We’re taking the day off in deference to our U.S. readers coping with the official end of summer after a long Labor Day weekend. Enjoy … and welcome back to the grind! Kevin and Roger

Learn More September 4, 2023

Japanese Taxes, Premiums and Unintended Consequences

The Japanese can take free welding lessons near Mt. Fuji or test drive a Porsche or serve as mayor for a day. The catch? Give these locales some of your tax dollars. Japan has cooked a system letting taxpayers redirect some of their local taxes to towns or cities where they don’t live—and receive a […]

Learn More September 1, 2023

The U-Shaped Giving Curve

Much academic ink has been spilt dancing on the head of a pin while debating the U-shaped giving curve. What U-shape you ask? The one showing rich, and poor give a greater percentage of their income than the middle class. This phenomenon is real and until now, practically uninteresting since the explanation hinges on external […]

Learn More August 30, 2023

Rx for Fundraisers

If ever most of us could use some uplifting tonic following the Mug Shot Weekend, it’s now. In fact, I’d argue we really need a double dose. Thus, today’s help-us-heal and lift up our sight’s elixir. It’s been 15 years ago this month since the indomitable Harvey McKinnon and his co-author Azim Jamal released their […]

Learn More August 28, 2023

The Enshittification of Digital Donor Acquisition

It’s no secret, it’s increasingly difficult and expensive finding new donors online. Remember the Facebook ads glory days in the 2010s? It seemed all we had to do was upload a list of performing donors, spawn some lookalike audiences, toss in some photos with the right aspect ratios, slap a good caption on it, then […]

Learn More August 25, 2023

Six Golden Writing Rules

Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, wrote, “Politics and the English Language” in 1946. He hated empty and obscure prose. His culprits were, Dying metaphors: essentially clichés, which “have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” We won’t […]

Learn More August 23, 2023