The Agitator

Given the challenging economic environment as the books close on calendar 2008, The Agitator would like to take the pulse of fundraisers and share your collective sense of the fundraising outlook for nonprofits over the balance of the year. We have put together this brief eight-question Vital ...  Read more

Here’s a white paper (must register to download) on marketing channel preferences from Ball State University’s Center for Media Design and ExactTarget, a email marketing company. They looked at six target segments and their preferences regarding media for receiving marketing messages ...  Read more

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a break — at least for a day — from the blogging blizzard (including here on The Agitator) on the woes of fundraising in a recession and the endless achievements of Obama’s online fundraising machine.So when I saw this review ...  Read more

Here is a fundraising “manifesto” brought to our attention by marketing maven Seth Godin.Called In Defense of Raising Money, it’s written by Sasha Dichter, Director of Business Development for the Acumen Fund, one of the more innovative social investment vehicles — a ...  Read more

Thanks to Convio and JupiterResearch, nonprofit fundraisers have new and valuable insight into the expected online giving of Americans in the upcoming holiday season.As we read the data, the news is good: Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!For this report prepared by Convio, Jupiter asked 175.6 ...  Read more

 The Agitator’s Week In Review.  As news of economic woes continued again this week  tension and quiet terror grew even more noticeable among some fundraisers. Tom and I have quite different views over just how worried we all should be.  So, we talked it over and put up our first audio ...  Read more

Here is a useful article via Marketing Sherpa regarding best practices for email fundraising. It’s focused more on the copywriting aspects of email appeals.One thing this checklist drives home for me is the importance of testing email subject lines. These “headlines” are crucially ...  Read more

If you are the only voter in America who hasn’t yet seen this online video message from MoveOn, then you owe The Agitator big-time for bringing it to your attention.I guarantee you will pass this “make sure you vote” video along … and probably edit it yourself before doing ...  Read more

So declare Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry (founders of the influential TechPresident) in this article on Politico. I agree.First they provide some context:“In the 60 years that the top three TV networks have been broadcasting, they have produced about 1.5 million hours of content — assuming ...  Read more

Yesterday, Roger published an audio-recording of a conversation he and I had about the impact of today’s traumatic economic conditions on fundraising. Here it is if you missed. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version ...  Read more