The Agitator

The only thing we like less than a company that screws up big time, is one that has the sense to reverse course before their roof caves in! Just as we were licking our chops, relishing the spectacle of a few hundred thousand cell phone customers canceling their Verizon Wireless service to protest ...  Read more

In his recent piece in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Peter Manzo urged issue advocates to make better use of cell phones as a tool for citizen engagement. (He also took the US telecommunications biz to task for lagging behind the rest of the world in providing state of the art services.) ...  Read more

The other day we urged our readers to dive into online video, and pointed out that big budgets weren't required. We've received some useful comments on that post from Humane Society of the U.S. and from See3 Communications, which I urge you to read. But here in its entirety is a ...  Read more

When we went to press at 1:00 A.M. EST this morning (each day's Agitator is posted at that time) we expressed concern that with the situation in Burma about to explode none of the major human rights groups had anything current on their websites. Within hours the void was filled by Amnesty ...  Read more

Last night, while the billion+ BBC audience (compare that to CNN's 18 million+) heard and saw the headline news of the 10th day of protests in Burma, I decided to check out of real life and and go to a rock concert. So it was off to a performance in Amsterdam by The Tragically Hip, a ...  Read more

Have some fun today taking Pew Research Center's annual news IQ. Warning … the average number of correct responses among all Americans was 7 out of 12. Raise the bar to 8 if you're a college grad. The toughest question — though we're sure Agitator readers will do better! ...  Read more

Here's a Monday mind-stretcher on “influence” — what is it, who has it, can “influencers” be influenced? For many nonprofits, especially those in the advocacy business, communication strategies include an element of targeting “influentials.” As the ...  Read more

Many organizations raise the greatest proportion of their funds in the critically important year-end giving season — the extraordinary philanthropic window that opens somewhere in October and stays open through the end of the year. Here's a checklist refined over the years at Craver ...  Read more

Sorry, but I'm probably going to badger you monthly from here on out with the latest stats on online video watching. As I've written before, I think it is crucial for nonprofits to master this medium for conducting your fundraising, advocacy and educational efforts. According to ...  Read more

Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, creators of techPresident (the award-winning* place to follow how presidential candidates are using online media), have written a great piece on how messages move in our new internet-driven media environment. The immediate context of their article is the campaigns ...  Read more