The Agitator

For months, we’ve been urging readers to track the online fundraising exploits of presidential candidates, where new ground has been broken almost weekly … especially by Barack Obama. The Obama campaign is to online fundraising what George McGovern was to direct mail fundraising in ...  Read more

Have The Agitator and DonorTrends discovered the Fundraising Rosetta Stone … demystifing the real reason behind falling acquision and retention rates and other recent fundraising plagues? We think so. In reporting our 2005 DonorTrends survey three years ago, we noted that Boomers had ...  Read more

Nick Rongione of Kintera recently wrote this article in Fundraising Success extolling the virtues of truly integrating — and then actually using — all the data your organization captures, or could capture, about your supporters. His point: the more complete behavioral profile you can ...  Read more

Most of us, when we think of cause marketing, probably think it’s relevant to only the biggest and "safest" nonprofit brands, like Habitat for Humanity or Bono’s RED. But here’s down-to-earth advice from Selfish Giving blogger Joe Waters, for whom cause marketing is ...  Read more

Then read this excellent case study provided by Marketing Sherpa. But you must read by June 24 unless you’re a subscriber. In this example, a travel destination raised its conversion rates on marketing emails by 50% by embedding a brief video that automatically played when the email was ...  Read more

Of course not every nonprofit has access to a celebrity to help raise its profie … or fundraise. But if you do, should you jump at the chance? This article from the NY Times provides some excellent insights into the world of celebrity marketing. Does it work? You bet your Rihanna umbrella ...  Read more

If you are a fundraiser or communicator for an advocacy group, here’s another "must read" report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. As they summarize: Fully 46% of all Americans have used the internet, email or cell phone text messaging to get news about the ...  Read more

Yesterday, Roger featured some "new media" created by the latest generation of hip political junkies. Cool. But here’s a real TV legend … the "Daisy" commercial created in 1964 by media guru Tony Schwartz for the Johnson campaign. For you youngsters, that’s ...  Read more

Last week, as the primary phase of the presidential campaigns ended and the run up to the November elections began in earnest, Ad Age and Digital Hollywood held their co-produced extravaganza Advertising 2.0 in New York City. Among the panelists was Kristi Vandenbosch head of Tequila, the global ...  Read more

A recent edition of the Chronicle’s online Philanthropy Today got me scratching my head. One piece, Mass Charities Urged to Merge and Pool Resources, reported that the Boston Foundation was urging the 36,000 nonprofits in Massachusetts to consider either merging or at least sharing resources ...  Read more