The Agitator

Recent surveys on consumer confidence and expectations about the economy will separate optimistic fundraisers from the pessimists. Typical of what I’m seeing is this survey released last week by Harris Interactive. It reports that only 24% of Americans see their own household’s ...  Read more

Back in July, Mark Dolliver wrote this terrifically insightful article in Adweek regarding marketing to today’s age 65+ consumer. [Sorry, I'm just catching up to this, thanks to a mention by the Boomer Project.] Dolliver refers to this group as the Silent Generation (born 1925-42) ...  Read more

Lately I’ve added another source to my daily email feeds … Hispanic Trending. Hispanic Trending, the work of marketing consultant Juan Tornoe, compiles a handful of articles from various sources each day that give insight into the Latino community — everything from political ...  Read more

A study by Anderson Analytics of online social net use, reported here on MediaPost and here in Business Week, contains good news for  cause marketers and fundraisers. According to the study, which followed 5,000 online users, those who belong to a social net are four times more vocal about ...  Read more

Last week, I applauded blogger Jeff Brooks, who was critical of Charity Navigator for casting aspersions on direct mail fundraising … specifically for buying into the "myth that fundraising is a form of harassment." I stand by that. But I do accept that most direct response ...  Read more

The Pew Internet Project has released new figures on home broadband penetration in the U.S. Their key observation is that broadband penetration is increasing most dramatically in population segments that have traditionally lagged — older Americans, lower income households and rural ...  Read more

Here’s a fun account from MediaPost of the phenom of Boomers joining the world of online social networking. As the article begins: "’Congratulations! Your parents just joined Facebook. Your life is officially over.’ Such is the greeting visitors receive upon entering the ...  Read more

Regular readers of The Agitator will know how impressed I am with the research and analysis provided by Pew Research, especially with regard to online trends, media habits, and the confluence of media and politics/advocacy. But you don’t need to rely entirely on The Agitator to get this ...  Read more

Expanding on an Agitator post of several weeks ago, here’s some fresh demographic data on social net usage from Harris Interactive. 5% of Americans online use Twitter, while 48% use Facebook or MySpace. No surprise … usage goes up with education, and down with age. For example, 74% of ...  Read more

We have to confess that The Agitator does not do justice to the important area of planned giving. Now we don’t have to feel quite so guilty! Our colleague Phyllis Freedman of Continuum Planned Giving has begun The Planned Giving Blogger. She’s a pro. In case you don’t know ...  Read more