Breaking Out of the Status Quo

Are F-2-F Managers Squandering Millions?

I fear the answer is “Yes.” Today there are at least a dozen major US nonprofits that are collectively spending tens of millions on F-2-F campaigns. My fear is that many are wasting their organization’s and their donors’ dollars because the Target Benchmark data on retention for F2F, street acquired sustainers is sobering and suggests […]

Learn More September 18, 2019

Neglected Treasure

Nick’s post on How Asking Affects the Askedemphasized the importance of requesting feedback directly from the donor and explains why that feedback is so important and so valuable. There’s another form of feedback and I’m afraid in our highly automated, often impersonal processes it’s been lost: the comments donors write on their response forms or […]

Learn More September 6, 2019

How Asking Affects the Asked

There are some phenomena that are impossible to measure without effecting some change. Think of your tire pressure gauge – to measure the pressure in your tire, you have to let some air out, thus changing your tire’s pressure. This is so ingrained in our lives and our physics that there are times that subatomic […]

Learn More August 30, 2019

Fundraising Pioneer and Provocateur Dies

John Groman, 74, co-founder of Epsilon and a pioneer in database fundraising died August 24 in Sheldon, South Carolina. John was more than a friend. He was a feisty, driven colleague who brought new methods and new ways of viewing direct response fundraising that forever changed our sector. Beginning in 1969—almost 50 years to the […]

Learn More August 28, 2019

Missing Out: Smaller Organizations and Direct Mail

Last month we surveyed Agitator readers in an effort to answer three questions: Are smaller nonprofits taking advantage of the power of postal mail/direct mail? Do they understand its financial potential? If they do understand its potential, why aren’t they using more direct mail/postal mail? The survey answers, in a nutshell, are: Smaller organizations are not taking […]

Learn More August 26, 2019

Buy Nick’s Book

Nick has written a practical, helpful, and, yes, fun-to-read book on surviving the complex calamity of diminishing donor numbers, clogged acquisition channels and diminishing retention. It’s titled: The New Nonprofit: Six Models to Raise More Money and Accomplish More Mission. It’s just been released and is ready for your order! I’ve read the book four times […]

Learn More August 22, 2019

Fundraisers Abandon Ship

Not only is the nonprofit sector doing a lousy job holding on to donors, we’re apparently equally awful when it comes to retaining nonprofit fundraisers. In a recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll for The Chronicle of Philanthropyand AFP, using a self-selected sample of American and Canadian fundraisers, a whopping 51% of the respondents […]

Learn More August 19, 2019

Direct Mail Isn’t Dead, But Volume As A Strategy Is.

There’s an excellent post by Erica Waasdorp on CharityHowTo detailing how mail is still working for organizations. She highlights how digital is still a small-ish minority of all gifts (we’ve estimated it will hit 25% of gifts by 2084) and how there’s still a high return on direct mail investment for many organizations. We totally […]

Learn More August 16, 2019

Testing, Testing, A/B/C

We’ve received a few testing questions here at Agitator | DonorVoice HQ: How can I test inexpensively? What level of statistical significance is necessary to call a winner (and how do I get it)? What is most important to test? We aim to help! I’d first recommend Roger and Kevin’s Curse of Testing Illiteracy post, […]

Learn More August 7, 2019

Where to Find the Elusive Monthly Donor

As the one-time donor (dator unum) becomes an increasingly endangered species, organizations have correctly gone in search of recurring donors (dator magnus). In the past two years, sustaining gifts have gone from 20% to 30% of (median) organizational revenue. Much of the search for recurring donors has been centered on trying to get one-time donors, […]

Learn More August 5, 2019

Ask A Behavioral Scientist

Behavioral Science Q & A

Q:We are struggling with acquistion. During our biggest community campaign, a colleague is suggesting that we have a QR code directing donors to a donate page that does not capture donor information – just a donation and an email address. We won’t be able to post any of these new doors our lvoely newsletters, or thank you letters. We’ll likely never hear from them again. What’s the best method to get this team to see the importance about a donor vs a donation?

Thanks so much for raising this. Yes, capturing donor information can be helpful for stewardship like newsletters, thank-you letters, impact updates. But how you ask matters. Forcing full data capture introduces friction that can significantly depress conversion, many donors may simply abandon the process. Beyond the friction itself, required fields also shift the emotional experience […]

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Q: Should we include “Giving Tuesday” in the subject lines for the emails that are going out before Giving Tuesday?

Unlike holidays that everyone already knows, Giving Tuesday is a created event. Many donors recognize the name but not the exact timing, so referencing it becomes a helpful cue. It serves as a reminder and taps into social norm activation (“everyone’s giving today”), which boosts response. However, we still want it paired with the mission, […]

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Q: can we pull the match language into the subject lines? Or this should be an A/B test?

When a subject line leads with the match (“Your gift matched!”), it risks triggering market-norm thinking: the sense that giving is a financial transaction rather than an act rooted in values, identity, and care. This shift reduces intrinsic motivation and, over time, can weaken donor satisfaction and long-term engagement. It also makes the email indistinguishable […]

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Q: Our mid-level donor team removed the QR code from the DM donation form that links to the donation page, but have left the URL for them to type it in manually. Not sure why they are adding a barrier to the donation process for a higher value donor – but I have to ask – is there any proof – either way – if a QR donation code reduces MV online giving, has any effect on their donation amount, has any effect on off line donations? Thank you….

There’s no evidence that QR codes suppress mid-value giving; all available research suggests they either help or have no negative effect. In fact, behavioral and usability research consistently shows the opposite: reducing friction at any point in the donation process increases completion rates and total response. And that has nothing to do with capacity and […]

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Q: How can we effectively use behavioral science to help shift our Board’s mindset. The majority are extremely resistant to asking their networks or sharing their contact lists with us, even after a candid discussion with an external lay leader who has been training boards with her fantastic Fundraising isn’t the F Word! workshop. We have also offered to use our automated email tool to send their appeals from their own email. It is so frustrating. We even have 2 Board members and the chair trying put some accountability on them for our big event but people are not really moving!

What you’re experiencing is very common. Resistance often isn’t about capability, but about motivation quality. If board members feel pushed into fundraising, that triggers controlled motivation (low quality motivation) i.e. obligation, guilt, or fear of judgment, which often results in avoidance. Instead, we need to create conditions for volitional motivation (high quality motivation) by satisfying […]

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Q: Copywriters often argue the ask should appear on the first page, but that usually breaks the story in two. With a one-sided letter the ask is always on page one, but with a two-sided letter it may fall on the second page—do results differ? Has your appeal structure been tested on both one-sided and two-sided letters? I just read the article Your Appeal Outline: Thoughtful Strategy or Random Spasm?

That’s a really thoughtful question, and you’re not the first to raise it. Many of our clients have been cautious about placing the ask at the very end. To address their concern, we’ve tested both approaches, and the results are clear: when the ask comes last, even if that means it appears on the second […]

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