Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Are You Doing “segmentation” or Segmentation?

For purposes of this post all versions of “segmentation” that include air quotes” ” and a lower case ‘s’ are not segmentation at all. Sadly, most versions of claimed Segmentation are really little more than the impersonating cousin named “segmentation”. None of the following is real Segmentation; Mailing the same thing to different audiences. An […]

Learn More December 22, 2021

A Charity Just Bought A Behavioral Science Agency, Why?

Nesta is a social change, UK foundation whose seed money came from government. The Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) is a behavioral insights consultancy whose seed money also came from government. With a little bit of creativity in financing and deal making, the former just bought the latter for £15mil. Why? The answer from Nesta’s own […]

Learn More December 20, 2021

What Images to Use in Fundraising?

Any answer to this question should start with ‘it depends’. What follows should include, Some theory or evidence on what makes images different and Theory or evidence on what makes people who are looking at the images different and the interplay between the two. However, most answers to this question include pontificating about #1 only, […]

Learn More December 17, 2021

Emotional Contagion in Social

Emotional contagion is the phenomenon of humans feeling and expressing emotions similar to those around them. This effect can be triggered by face to face conversations, videos, movies, photographs and even music. Sad begets sad, happy begets happy and angry begets angry. An analysis of Facebook charity posts from the 100 largest US charities shows […]

Learn More December 15, 2021

3 Lasting Gifts Under $2 for Your Donors

From monthly Apples and Pears to Zoo gift memberships my postal and digital mailboxes are filled with last minute tips for holiday gift giving. All of which got me thinking about gifts every fundraiser should be giving their donors. I’m not talking about calendars or stuffed animals or tote bags. Rather consider these essential gifts […]

Learn More December 13, 2021

Everybody Has Got a Story

Is there a more overused word than ‘narrative’ these days? I’ve tried to remove it from my vocabulary. Story is simpler anyway. So much of fundraising has no story. This isn’t conjecture. We’ve scored hundreds of pieces of copy and the Story Score (per Copy Optimizer) is dreadful and most often it’s not because the […]

Learn More December 10, 2021