Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Early, Often… and Overrated: More on the Second Gift Myth

Solicitation frequency. Not exactly cocktail party conversation but conversation starter nevertheless. Here is a look at 3 organizations, 7 full years of giving, all reglious, and all mailing a lot, I mean a lot; 30-50 times a year, not a typo. To restate, much conventional wisdom rests on these two points Get the second gift […]

Learn More March 23, 2026

Your Second Gift Data Is Lying To You

There’s a finding that circulates enough in fundraising circles that it’s treated as established fact: donors who receive a second ask within 30 days of their first gift give again at much higher rates than those who wait five weeks or more. The implied takeaway is straightforward; ask again quickly, capture the momentum. Except the […]

Learn More March 20, 2026

When the Close Up Image Doesn’t Work

Hopeful or sad for your appeal? It sounds like a practical choice, which is probably why it sticks around. But it pushes into the wrong level of thinking by assuming emotion is a dial you adjust independently as single variable when instead, it’s more of a holistic, gut level reaction. How many appeals are you […]

Learn More March 18, 2026

The Charity Image That Quietly Signals Agency

Same hands, same object being transferred, same charitable context; just a small shift in vertical position. On the left, the donor’s hand sits below the recipient’s, on the right, it’s above. Donors donated more in a split test when the donor’s hand appeared higher in the frame. The reason is straightforward, humans interpret vertical space […]

Learn More March 16, 2026

“Experiencing Homelessness” and Other Ways We Talk Past People

Concrete, precise, and specific language makes donors feel heard. Wharton’s Jonah Berger and York University’s Grant Packard analyzed customer service interactions to understand what moves customer satisfaction. It wasn’t compensation, tone, or empathy training, it was word choice. Increasing linguistic concreteness by one standard deviation improved customer satisfaction by 9% and actual spending by 13%. […]

Learn More March 13, 2026

The Dead Man Who Knows More About Fundraising Than You Do

Let me tell you about Lyman Pierce. He raised the equivalent of $5 billion before anyone had heard of a CRM. He invented the capital campaign, the gift table, the volunteer team structure, and the daily accountability report — then in 1940 he died and was largely forgotten. HOWEVER…he left behind a fundraising manual that […]

Learn More March 11, 2026