Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Monkey Business

Headline: Breakthrough study finds subjects do more tasks if they enjoy it and the quality of the work product differs greatly across subjects. And in other news, water is in fact, wet. The details of the study are a bit more interesting, if still obvious. The scientists discovered major individual differences in preferences – reflecting […]

Learn More November 24, 2021

Chip Craver: A Kindly Presence Dead at 77

My younger brother, Forrest “Chip” Craver, is dead. He would have turned 78 this week on the 26th. Covid-related pneumonia got him. Forrest E. Craver, III earned his living as a copywriter and fundraiser. But he was so much more. Chip was that rare and kindly presence whose outrage at injustice never dimmed, never gave […]

Learn More November 22, 2021

First Aid for Giving Tuesday

We don’t need analysts or fortune tellers to predict the two greatest self-inflicted injuries on Giving Tuesday. The first will involve stupidly or fraudulently executed matching gift offers. The second, equally stupid and inexcusable failure to meaningfully thank donors for their participation. Here are simple steps you still have time to take to avoid unnecessary […]

Learn More November 19, 2021

Lazy Labels

We write about Identity but how do we best write to an Identity? Does invoking the label help show we know who they are? For example, “as a dog lover…” What about those health charities out there whose entire approach to ‘tailoring’ of appeals to supporters they know have the disease is tweaking the lead-in […]

Learn More November 17, 2021

Try Dying for Giving Tuesday

Rather than featuring the horrifically over-used matching gift offer or the ubiquitous “Give because it’s Giving Tuesday” non-motivational message, why not try a giving call-to-action that features something very much on donors’ minds these days? Death. At the outset of the pandemic, many organizations were nervous about their planned-giving communications, wary that they would appear insensitive. […]

Learn More November 15, 2021

Donor Geography: West Coast is From Venus, Southeast is From Mars

We’ve written extensively about the Big Five of Personality psychology and how to measure Personality and use it to tailor messaging to get beyond the unsatisfying world of one-size-fits-all. ( See here, here and here.) Importance of Personality Why Personality? It predicts health, morbidity, occupation, entrepreneurship rates, innovation, political values, regional stereotypes, income inequality and […]

Learn More November 12, 2021