Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Are You Creating Pain for Your Donors?

My email inbox is still sore from its Labor Day weekend workout. As predicted a hyperbolic tsunami of email flooded forth from candidates and causes on both ends of the political spectrum. Failure to respond would result in an end to the world, a more dangerous and rapid rise in fascism (or socialism), and basically […]

Learn More September 8, 2021

Hats off to you Oregon

Today is Labor Day in the US and not to be outdone, Canada too, albeit with a Pat Sajak inspired extra vowel. But Oregon gets first mover status being the first to officially recognize the day as a public holiday in 1887. The Agitator is off today but not without a bit of Office Space […]

Learn More September 6, 2021

Exposing and Eliminating Unethical Email

Thank God It’s Friday. It’s been a horrible week in the real world: Massive evacuations and fear of Taliban retaliation in Afghanistan… historically massive and destructive wild fires in the West… reactionary and racist anti-democracy, voter suppression legislation enacted in Texas… tacit approval by the U.S. Supreme Court of a contrived, mean and vicious law […]

Learn More September 3, 2021

The Charity Sector Data Fishing Plague

Slice your data enough ways and you’ll find differences. I was reminded of this sitting through a conference session that shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. But they’ve got lots of company. How many times have you seen a Powerpoint deck from one of the 3rd party data providers summarizing how your donors are […]

Learn More September 1, 2021

Past Behavior Predicts Future Behavior – Who Cares?

This post’s title largely summarizes my view. Past giving predicts future giving and so begins the circular logic of donor understanding. It’s akin to noting that someone is on time because they tend to be punctual. Knowing that past behavior predicts future behavior can make you more efficient but you can efficient your way out […]

Learn More August 30, 2021

How to Ruin Good Copy

We think and worry a lot about copy (here, here, here and here). And so does Tom Ahern, Kathy Swayze, Jeff Brooks and many other proven fundraising copywriters. Are we wasting our time? Let me explain the reason behind this question. A well-crafted piece of fundraising copy is far more than words on paper or […]

Learn More August 27, 2021