Fundraisers seem to do a phenomenal job.

Somehow, you don’t see fundraisers making a lot of arguments that “Money spent on evaluation means less letters mailed out” or “Evaluation is difficult and you can never really isolate causality perfectly.” Instead, you see them testing. And testing. And testing. And learning things that are far from obvious. And testing again.

Maybe it’s because they’re the ones the nonprofits rely on to stay in business. Program, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be as good as it can be … unless we demand it.