The Agitator

Target Analytics has just issued the results for its Index of National Fundraising Performance for the first half of 2008. Read ‘em and weep! · Fewer than one third (31%) of the organizations in the index had positive donor growth in the first half of 2008 –a continuation of the ...  Read more

Historically, the most consistently successful nonprofit fundraisers using DRTV have been the child sponsor agencies — Save the Children, Worldvision, Christian Children’s Fund, etc.* Their campaigns effectively married strong emotional visuals and case statements with the sound ROI ...  Read more

  The Agitator’s Week In Review.  This was a week for politics, beginning with the Washington, D.C. soap opera over the on-again-off-again bailout of the  U.S. financial system and ending with the on-again Presidential Debates in Oxford, Mississippi. Regardless of where you ...  Read more

Over on Convio’s blog, Connection Cafe, their staff has been comparing the websites of Obama and McCain on key attributes like accessibility, ease and clarity of navigation, and — of most interest to me — engagement features and pathways.Online politicking pundits, like the folks ...  Read more

It used to be that “good government” advocates like the League of Women Voters and high school civics teachers were thrilled if anyone merely watched political debates!With the advent of the web’s online engagement, viewing and social networking options, however, the “good ...  Read more

Here is a fascinating report from Pew Research Center indicating the bias of cell phone-only respondents to political polls.Pew has conducted three surveys on presidential candidate preferences since the primaries ended. In each case, they isolated the responses of individuals who reported using ...  Read more

This recent survey by the Pew Research Center has found that of the 44% of the public that goes online regularly at work, 70% check the news through the day.But what news are they following?Observes Pew:“The quest for news at work might come as a surprise in the face of findings about the ...  Read more

Hispanics total 46 million in the US, or about 15% of the population.A recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center indicates they are becoming more pessimistic about the outlook for Latinos in America, with some of this discontent rubbing off on the Republicans.50% of Hispanic adults say the situation ...  Read more

The Agitator’s Week In Review.  This week the roller coaster that is the U.S. and global stock markets rocketed down, then up,  on the news that The Fed, the U.S. Treasury and central banks worldwide pumped billions into financial markets ending a punishing week of financial panic…a ...  Read more

To succeed as a nonprofit today, either in fundraising or advocacy terms, Seth Godin says you need to be "fashionable." What he means by that, as explained in this audio presentation well worth a listen, is that your organization needs to be worth talking about, at least to some critical ...  Read more