The Agitator

For some nonprofits, fundraising can be quite sensitive to the headlines … a natural disaster here, a Supreme Court nomination there. I once had a client castigate me, rightfully, for "sitting on" an urgent appeal opportunity until Monday, triggered by an event that occurred the ...  Read more

Convio is brandishing a new "fundraising calculator" that claims to compute the future value of your integrated direct mail, telemarketing and online fundraising stream. Says Jordan Viator of Convio: "The tool allows nonprofit organizations to estimate their online fundraising ...  Read more

Yesterday I suggested that competition amongst nonprofits for the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of donors might become more fierce; that this would be good for the causes served; and this trend would force more attention to communicating the core defferentiating qualities of competing groups. In ...  Read more

I was reading this article from Online Spin about the competition between Nielsen Online and comScore as to who has the biggest and best online panel for measuring online behavior. This is the sort of thing that market researchers can get quite passionate about. And indeed, given that marketers ...  Read more

Something possessed an Agitator reader to share this amazing goof with us. We’ll keep this person anonymous to protect the guilty, as well as the organization, to spare it (you’d all recognize it) the embarrassment. Here it is: "While with the [organization], I screwed up a ...  Read more

We welcome a Guest Agitator today, copywriter Lisa Sargent (www.lisasargent.com). Lisa has a bone to pick with nonprofits who try to write effective fundraising copy — themselves or through consultants — without an explicit creative brief to provide the essential guidance. She’s ...  Read more

Yesterday we reported the quantitative results from The Agitator’s Mid-Year Fundraising Assessment survey. Those responses indicated relative calm at this stage of the fundraising year. As Tom summarized: “Being an optimist, I would characterize the results as saying that seven-in-ten ...  Read more

The verdict is in from Agitator readers … 2009 fundraising for the first half of 2009 is, well, so-so! First of all, thanks to the 130 readers (81% from nonprofits, 19% consultants/agencies) who completed our mid-year assessment survey. Here’s the topline of how you are viewing 2009 ...  Read more

In this mini-debate from DMNews, three approaches to measuring loyalty are advanced: 1. Lifetime value — the person who buys (donates) the most over the longest period. 2. Share of wallet — the person who devotes the largest percentage of their spend (or donations) in your category to ...  Read more

Sounds like something you don’t want to do, right? Wrong! Seeing data is pretty cool. The Foundation Center last week launched "Philanthropy In/Sight", a data visualization platform designed for grantmakers or anyone seeking to understand the impact of philanthropy throughout the ...  Read more