Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Is That Story Real or Fake?

There’s lots of sector interest in storytelling and making it feel authentic. Is a real story ever fake? If it walks like a fake story and talks like one then the reader will feel it as such, whether it’s “authentic” or not. On the flip side, AI generated stories, which are objectively fake, can feel […]

Learn More August 16, 2023

Use Concrete to Get Unstuck

Concrete, precise and specific words or statements make people feel more heard in donor service domains. Here is a study from Jonah Berger showing the big difference in satisfaction and purchase intent tied to word choice as you move up the concrete scale. In donor service world this equates to raising more money without asking […]

Learn More August 14, 2023

The Answer is 42

We’re in the pre-phase of AI and fundraising. The pre-phase, a concept coined by Kevin Kelly in New Rules for The New Economy, is marked by high hopes and grand ambition. Everyone can and does compete, including lots of non-experts. There will be very few winners and lots of losers along the way. Consider, in […]

Learn More August 11, 2023

How Hard Are You Pulling the Rope?

Is your team – agency, charity, agency + charity – the right size? Bigger isn’t better. There’s a strong tendency for individual members of a group to become increasingly less productive as the size of their group increases. This phenomenon occurs in rope pulling and the workplace, it’s called the Ringlemann effect. Ringlemann measured the […]

Learn More August 9, 2023

Jerry Huntsinger is Dead

Jerry Huntsinger, 90, died peacefully early Sunday morning in Williamsburg, Virginia. Along with scores of Agitator readers, hundreds of fans, and devotees we’ve lost a dear and precious friend. We marked his 90th Birthday just two weeks ago with the tribute Celebrating the Wonder and Wisdom of Jerry Huntsinger . Lots of readers weighed in […]

Learn More August 7, 2023

Factual or Emotive?

Which of these two marketing appeals for blood donation worked best? The enterprising Agitator subscriber has learned that this is a trick question as all our marketing works differently for different people – whether we know it or not. This experiment was no different. The researchers found that people with a high sense of social […]

Learn More August 4, 2023