Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Supporter Motivation Is Under Your Control

Motivation is arguably the coin of the fundraising realm. If a donor feels motivated to give, they’ll keep doing it. Motivation differs by amount, a lot or little and by type, high or low quality. And most importantly it differs by situation or context. We all experience this; different levels of motivation for different jobs […]

Learn More December 9, 2022

What Should You Know When You “Know” A Donor?

Charities love to segment and design appeals and giving programs to fit a group. These groups are typically created using demographics (age or income) or donors’ giving history – sustainers, lapsed sustainers, one-time donors. Segmentation works, helping create more effective appeals. Giving Tuesday can mean something very different to, say, a long-time monthly donor versus […]

Learn More December 7, 2022

Regret Is A Terrible Thing to Waste

Are you less likely to do something again if you regret it? Giving can produce regret and that regret makes me anticipate regret the next time I’m asked to give. And it’s that anticipated regret, caused by prior, experienced regret that makes me less likely to give again. Habits cut both ways and we can […]

Learn More December 5, 2022

Impulse Giving is Deliberative

That’s the oxymoronic finding from research among donors who selected “it was an impulse decision” from a drop-down menu prompt in a hospice organization’s online checkout process asking why they were donating today. These donors were further qualified as not having been prompted to visit the site from a fundraising prompt and only having made […]

Learn More December 2, 2022

One Panda Or Four?

Researchers asked separate groups of people how much they’d donate to save 2,000, 20,000 or 200,000 migrating birds drowning in an oil pond. The mean responses are stunningly similar, $80, $78 and $88. This underscores what is wonkily called “scope neglect” or the inability or unwillingness to factor in the size of the problem as part […]

Learn More November 30, 2022

People Who Do, Do, The Rest Meet

I have a love/hate with meetings. I love to hate them though I suspect meetings are a bit like capitalism, the worst option save all the others. We’ve tried and tried to re-invent the Monday morning staff meeting, a ritualistic practice guaranteed to be a waste of time for 90% at any given point. The […]

Learn More November 28, 2022

Award-Winning Blog

Supporter Motivation Is Under Your Control