Are Your Email Donors Different from Your Mail Donors?

The polls got a relative drubbing in 2016 but their long-term win rate is off the charts.   One 2016 theory alive and well going into 2022 was polls suffered from response bias, the people willing to be polled had different candidate preference from those showing up to vote. More specifically, Republican voters were less willing […]

People With Less Free Time Volunteer More?

I’ve always heard the cash or time trope.  Hell, I’ve said it. People give of time or treasure depending on which resource they have more of.  Makes perfect sense except there’s little evidence beyond the anecdotal to support it. A German research study examines the impact of income and life’s other competing interests on discretionary […]

Who Owns the Story?

That’s the rhetorical question underlying an Amref Health UK report, a charity focused on health in Africa.  The report shares loads of useful detail on a direct mail test pitting what they call participant stories against charity stories. The report is authored by outside consultants, Jess Crombie and David Girling, in partnership with Amref.  The test […]

New Tricks for “Old” Fundraisers

The adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is, of course, nonsense.  A metaphor so often used as an excuse to adapt and change. Kevin’s post on Doggy Personality got me thinking even more than I usually do about change and risk-taking,  His post outlined how a donor file could be tagged, at […]

Homogenizing the Crap Out of a Heterogeneous World

Two hundred years ago, black/white/gray products were about 15% of the total. Today?  Closer to 60%. 7 out of 10 cars are black, white or gray.  Gray is the most popular interior carpet color. The most popular paints?  Fog, Mist and Linen, which as you might guess, ain’t exactly colorful. What’s causing this?  Big data.  […]

Statistical Significance Smificance…

Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore

July 4th,  the day to celebrate and remember what America’s all about. On this fraught-filled, future-fearing  July 4th I sure as hell hope we’re all taking the remembering seriously. Because Agitator’s mission focuses on direct response fundraising, I’ll forego the usual patriotic platitudes.  Instead for Independence Day 2022 I’m invoking the memory and wisdom of […]

Everything is Impacting Everything

From real estate to the stock market, to energy, to technology, to politics to fundraising the Pandemic/Supply Chain/Ukraine/Inflation Virus is wreaking havoc. This is certainly the case where direct response –both direct mail and digital—is concerned. Massive shortages of envelopes and paper with prices going up and availability still down. Significant production delays and bottlenecks.  […]

827 Years of Direct Mail in 40 Minutes,37 Seconds

“Power corrupts.  PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely.”  —Edward Tufte All of us who’ve suffered through interminable series of PowerPoint slides at conference after conference can certainly agree with Prof. Tufte, a pioneer in the field of information design and data visualization. HOWEVER….here’s an exception.  A masterclass in 827 years of direct mail history presented in 40 minutes […]

Paper vs Digital –Does the Medium Matter?

Does an ask for money or time get mentally processed differently depending on whether it’s a paper or digital ask? In a word, yes.  A study done in China and the US found that the medium determines, in part, how willing folks are to help. They dubbed the finding the “good paper” effect, which likely […]