Award Winning Blog - Agitator

It Feels Great To Give

Apropos of our conversation the past two days regarding the downside of expecting or making donors think about their impulse to give, check out this article from NY Times yesterday: Charity Campaigns Try Gentle Approach to Get Shoppers to Spend on Good Deeds. In the campaigns discussed, groups like the American Red Cross and Oxfam […]

Learn More December 9, 2011

Top 5 Reasons Non-Profits Should Avoid Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Before launching into the Top 5 allow us a brief trip down memory lane. Remember the good old days when intent or willingness to do something like recommend a product, brand or service was a simple question including in many customer satisfaction surveys? If the willingness to recommend question has parents (weird thought, we know) […]

Learn More December 8, 2011

Think, Then Give

Yesterday, based on studies of giving psychology, we headlined Don’t Think, Give. The overwhelming conclusion of psychological studies is that giving is motivated by a variety of non-rational needs and impulses and that, indeed, thinking or rationalizing gets in the way of giving. Ironically, the same day, Beth’s Blog cited a study, Money for Good II, […]

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Don’t Think, Give

Thanks to the Boston Globe for this excellent overview article examining the research behind giving … Why we give to charity. The bottomline won’t come as a surprise to experienced fundraisers. As the article summarizes: “… giving is driven by emotional motives, rooted in deep impulses, cognitive biases, and even our own selfish needs. (Charity […]

Learn More December 7, 2011

Does Consumer Confidence Matter?

Both the Conference Board, a major US business research outfit, and the University of Michigan for decades have produced indices measuring the ‘confidence’ of US consumers. It’s been claimed that these have some predictive capability vis-a-vis the outcomes of national elections in the US. I’m wondering if anyone has ever tracked charitable giving against either […]

Learn More December 6, 2011

How to Brand a NonProfit – Focus on the 6P’s

The 4Ps from classic marketing textbooks include; Product, Placement, Promotion and Price. We prefer adding two additional “Ps” for People and Processes. Contrast this with the two big dimensions often cited for branding – differentiation and relevance. The problem with these two dimensions is not their original intent (which was as part of larger, more […]

Learn More December 5, 2011