If you’re really serious about growing your organization, you must focus on answering this one question: Why do donors do what they do?

Unless you can empirically answer that question you’ll continue to be stuck with inefficient, scratch-the-surface guesswork, incremental testing to nowhere, and the oxymoron ‘flat-growth’.

Today, the answers to this question of ‘why’ all too often relies on ‘truisms’ from the trove of unproven tribal wisdom. While the art and science of medicine discovers that half its truisms are wrong every five years, the art and science of fundraising hasn’t troubled itself to challenge its truisms in decades.

Fortunately, the emergence of behavioral science is beginning to trigger more rigorous thinking. And it’s encouraging to see the topic beginning to appear at fundraising conferences and in the occasional blog or article.

Perhaps you’ve already encountered the terms ‘Warm glow’ … ‘Identifiable victim’ … ‘priming’ and ‘anchoring’ … ‘social proof’ … ‘loss aversion’ to name a few.

Hidden behind these effects are the behavioral scientists, psychologists, and economists who have identified these human tendencies and subconscious desires. The experts who stay attuned to the field as it evolves and the massive amount of live, field testing done every-day by these academics.

The bad news is that this body of knowledge sits largely unused, save for the entertaining or interesting blog post or conference session usually lifted from popular business books, but that fails to provide enough detail to motivate change in daily fundraising practice.

The good news is this body of knowledge can provide a more rigorous approach to influencing human behavior that is practically aimed at very real fundraising pain points (e.g. 2^nd gift conversion, upgrading).

The even better news? 

The Agitator, in cooperation with the behavioral scientists and analysts at DonorVoice, is sponsoring a free, three-part Webinar designed to help you design and apply practical and productive behavioral science techniques to your fundraising.

“Taking the BS out of Behavioral Science” is a webinar series you won’t want to miss. Rather than regurgitate behavioral science trends from popular business books in hopes you can figure out how to apply them, our panel of practitioners will actually show you what, how and why to apply behavioral science in your everyday work.

You can register today for all three sessions to be held on September 14^th,  September 21^st and September 28^th. I urge you to do so today.  Seating is limited.  Agitator readers will be given preference.

This set of three free Agitator/DonorVoice Webinars will bring behavioral science to life in three practical and essential fundraising applications:

• Upgrading your donors with optimal ask strings.

• Acquiring high-value donors with asks for commitments of multiple gifts.

• Boosting donor retention by getting them to opt in to your communications and fundraising.

These Agitator/DonorVoice Webinars won’t just give you the theory; they will demonstrate and show you how to put the science into practice. You’ll learn steps you can take immediately to get more and more valuable donors.

Bonus!  Bonus!  Bonus!

When you sign up for all three — and if you’re a paid Agitator Subscriber — you’ll be automatically entered to win a free, live Behavioral Science Audit of an online donation form or mail piece of your choosing. And if you’re not yet a paid Agitator subscriber you can do that here.

[Important Note: You don’t have to be a paid subscriber to attend the free Webinars. Only to be eligible to win the free Behavioral Science Audit.]

Here’s the Behavioral Science and Fundraising Agenda you won’t want to miss.

• The Science of Ask Strings, Wednesday, September 14^th at 12:00 noon Eastern:

DonorVoice’s newest staff member, Nick Ellinger, takes you through how to use the psychology of what you ask for to increase revenue and retention.

• Increasing the number of your donors’ gifts per year on Wednesday, September 21^st at noon Eastern:

DonorVoice principal Josh Whichard brings his 15 years of nonprofit direct marketing            experience to bear on how to create an effective multi-gift program.

• Using behavioral science to get people to opt-in on Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:00 noon Eastern:

DonorVoice principal Kevin Schulman and Dr. Kiki Koutmeridou PhD, the Chief Behavioral Scientist at DonorVoice, will walk through designing choices that make people click or check YES.

I’ll be on deck for all sessions to moderate and  prod.  And remember, they’re absolutely free.

I urge you to register for all three sessions as an Agitator subscriber, so we can enter you to win that free, live behavioral science audit of an online donation form or mail piece of your choosing.

Roger