The Agitator

Thanks to Margaret Battistelli at FundRaising Success for publishing these twelve best practices for e-efforts. They're proffered by Tom Gaffny, EVP for fundraising at Epsilon. As part of his homework, Tom made online contributions to 145 nonprofits and tracked their subsequent actions ...  Read more

Relevance. Relevance. Relevance! Relevance, that is, to your prospect … not just to you or your nonprofit. Now matter how truly needy, important and urgent your cause is, your donor gives because the act of giving satisfies a need of his or hers. Finding what makes your need converge with ...  Read more

From Online Marketing Blog, here is an important discussion of two studies on journalists and their use of blogs for news ideas and sources. Some factoids: Nearly 70% of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis; Almost half of reporters say they are “lurkers”; Over ...  Read more

And I'm not the least bit ashamed. This week, Lee Scott, CEO of Walmart, delivered a speech to his store managers called The Company of the Future. I urge you to read it. In the speech, Scott sets forth a series of pro-social goals for the corporate behemoth. He says in effect, that with ...  Read more

Researchers say “Yes.” Almost everybody does. The only real questions are how much and under what circumstances. Here's a curious piece of research on the matter from the Harvard Business Review, courtesy of the blog Trust Matters. When did you last lie or cheat? 'Fess up ...  Read more

Regular Agitator readers know the high value we place on trust as the essential core attribute of any brand, including your nonprofit. And the doorway to trust is transparency. For wherever a donor, a customer, a constituent sees or senses a veil or a curtain, their visceral reaction is suspicion ...  Read more

Here's a great viral marketing case study on how a poll widget was used to substantially boost online fundraising response. The group is Music for Relief, formed in association with band Linkin Park to raise money for victims of various natural disasters. In this case, the focus was victims ...  Read more

I've been mulling over some research on online monthly giving reported last month by M+R Strategic Services. Their findings are based on a survey of nearly 70 organizations plus analysis of the hard data from eight large high-profile nonprofits. Some interesting data here against which to ...  Read more

The March of Dimes has changed the name of Walk America, one of the grande dames of fundraising events, to March for Babies as part of an effort to re-position the organization to the public. As Stephanie Strom reports in the NYTimes, there's more than a name change happening here. Check out ...  Read more

Here, from the New York Times, is a very powerful way to tell a story … combining images, voiceover, music. The NYT uses it for news coverage, in this case featuring Doctors Without Borders. But I think you'll readily see how the approach could be used in a nonprofit fundraising or ...  Read more