Uncategorized - Agitator

Advocacy Fundraising

Give to Get: The Need for a New Acquisition Model

Mail list rental and exchange is diminishing in effectiveness. How can we tell? There’s the anecdotal: the number of people requesting no rental or exchange in feedback surveys is rising. And many charities are seeing their acquisition results wane. There’s the studied: researchers looked at people who get more charitable mail solicitations in a study […]

Learn More December 3, 2018

Bumper Crop for #GivingTuesday. Crop. Picture of the Larger Harvest Mixed.

First, a quick summary of 2018 #GivingTuesday results (as of 11/29/18): Biggest #GivingTuesday ever raised $380 million in the U.S. 6 million donations were made with mean gift size of $105.55 Facebook users, some using livestream Facebook video gaming, raised over $125 million; that’s $45 million more than last year. Blackbaud reported that its systems […]

Learn More November 30, 2018

“FRANKLY WE DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY”

I don’t know exactly when it will happen. But, some day in the not too distant future your organization will receive a letter from a donor that goes something like this: Dear ABC Organization, I’m growing increasingly concerned over the widespread use and abuse of my private and personal information by organizations like Facebook, Google […]

Learn More November 28, 2018

How to Get People to Help You (and Donate)

In June, psychologist Dr. Heidi Grant came out with Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You. She reviews the literature to find out how to ask for help in the workplace so both we and the askee are better off. The funny part is most of the lessons she has for asking for help […]

Learn More November 26, 2018

50 Ways to Thank Your Donors

Tomorrow our U.S. readers will celebrate Thanksgiving Day. Next week many Agitators will find themselves in the midst of #GivingTuesday. However, truth be told, we all should be about the business of thanking our donors every day. So, with apologies to Paul Simon and his 1975 Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover, here’s a lyrical […]

Learn More November 21, 2018

Distinguish Yourself on #GivingTuesday

If the number of “How To Get Ready for #Giving Tuesday” emails in my inbox is any barometer this year’s #GivingTuesday targets will be buried in a blizzard of breathless matching gift offers, convulsing countdown clocks and sundry demands that only an uncaring human, without soul or pulse, would refuse to hit the ‘donate’ button. […]

Learn More November 19, 2018

Waffle House: The Gold Standard for Fundraisers

One of my perennial Father/Son joys involves the l road trips in my F-150 pickup with son Chris. We play lots of John Haitt’s Drive South and even more of Willie Nelson. We’ve been up and down the East Coast, and all across the country. Mostly these journeys self-certify us as Legit Waffle House Critics […]

Learn More November 16, 2018

How to Lose

Geoffrey: My you chivalric fool… as if the way one fell down mattered. Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters. – The Lion in Winter We have chosen a losing profession. We choose to face down the most powerful. We choose to comfort the poor, one of whose most powerful advocates said […]

Learn More November 14, 2018

Alfred Hitchcock: Nonprofit Fundraiser, Part II

Two years ago, in Part 1, we talked about how Alfred Hitchcock held our rapt attention by having a separate script for the emotional arc of his movies. There’s another Hitchcock idea we can steal to raise more: the MacGuffin. The MacGuffin is the object around which a story revolves, but no one in the […]

Learn More November 12, 2018

Historic Performance of Young Voters

Last week in The Millennial Myth I wondered if younger folks would vote in the U.S. mid-term elections at a greater rate than in the past. The answer is a definite “yes” and was delivered to the Agitator by John Della Volpe, Director of Polling at the Institute of Policcs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. […]

Learn More November 8, 2018

Ask A Behavioral Scientist

Behavioral Science Q & A

Q: Do you have any insight on whether integrating an individual giving appeal with other comms from the charity in both appearance and messaging can uplift results? Or does the actual appeal become ‘lost’ for lack of stand-out?

Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]

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Q: Is there any research on response rate impact in direct mail when referring to a sustainer gift as ongoing or recurring (catching all frequencies) v. monthly or annual?

I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]

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Q: A major conservation nonprofit sends me lots of mail, many of which have on the envelope “time to renew” or “2nd notice.” I find this practice deceptive, especially as I haven’t given to said organization since 1997. It must be effective or they wouldn’t do it. But is it ethical?

Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]

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Q: I find it irritating when some nonprofits accept my “gift” and then ask me to cover their credit card fees separately. It feels like a practice that does nothing to help win donors and runs the risk of turning others off. Is there any data on this either way?

Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]

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Q: What are the three most important things to consider when designing a brilliant supporter journey?

There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]

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Q: Is there any evidence that changes to the tax laws in the USA changed end of year giving behaviors? Previously, ~30% of US taxpayers filed itemized tax returns allowing them to receive a deduction for charitable giving. Tax law changed in 2017 so that now only ~10% itemize. This should mean tax year-end giving should not matter to millions of people for whom it used to matter. Is there any data evidence to support this?

I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]

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Advocacy Fundraising

Give to Get: The Need for a New Acquisition Model

Bumper Crop for #GivingTuesday. Crop. Picture of the Larger Harvest Mixed.

“FRANKLY WE DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY”

How to Get People to Help You (and Donate)

50 Ways to Thank Your Donors

Distinguish Yourself on #GivingTuesday

Waffle House: The Gold Standard for Fundraisers

How to Lose

Alfred Hitchcock: Nonprofit Fundraiser, Part II

Historic Performance of Young Voters

Ask A Behavioral Scientist

Behavioral Science Q & A

Q: Do you have any insight on whether integrating an individual giving appeal with other comms from the charity in both appearance and messaging can uplift results? Or does the actual appeal become ‘lost’ for lack of stand-out?

Q: Is there any research on response rate impact in direct mail when referring to a sustainer gift as ongoing or recurring (catching all frequencies) v. monthly or annual?

Q: A major conservation nonprofit sends me lots of mail, many of which have on the envelope “time to renew” or “2nd notice.” I find this practice deceptive, especially as I haven’t given to said organization since 1997. It must be effective or they wouldn’t do it. But is it ethical?

Q: I find it irritating when some nonprofits accept my “gift” and then ask me to cover their credit card fees separately. It feels like a practice that does nothing to help win donors and runs the risk of turning others off. Is there any data on this either way?

Q: What are the three most important things to consider when designing a brilliant supporter journey?

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