Award Winning Blog - Agitator

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

Limiters are Liberating

Opportunity cost is almost certainly your biggest expense in an agency or charity. It’s the value and upside of the path not taken versus your chosen route. And your alternative isn’t a single path, it’s countless ones, a veritable multiverse of different endings. Consider this choice, attraction or persuasion fundraising. This probably ain’t in your […]

Learn More August 2, 2023

A Fundraising Metaphor? Choose Wisely.

Humans are messy and complex, so are the societal issues your raising money for – a double whammy of messy complexity. Metaphors can serve as bridges, connecting abstract ideas to concrete, familiar images, making complex concepts more digestible. Contemplating abstract things is easier with the use of concrete and familiar mental images. But metaphors are more […]

Learn More July 28, 2023