The Agitator

The latest data suggests that Twitter has stalled out at 17 million users. Here’s a good analysis. Personally, I take this as a welcome sign that there is still some semblance of substance and sanity on the planet. If someone in your nonprofit is trumpeting the urgency of getting on board ...  Read more

Seth Godin did one of his trademark "short but sweet" — and provocative — posts the other day, titled, No New Customers. Here it is in its entirety … What if a rift in the time-space continuum changed the universe and it was suddenly impossible to get new customers ...  Read more

Since The Agitator has heaps of readers with .edu email addresses, I thought I’d pass along a blog post by Seth Godin especially for you! It’s called The Coming Meltdown in Higher Education (as seen by a marketer), and while it gives Godin’s full critique of today’s higher ...  Read more

Not every Agitator reader has a multi-million dollar fundraising and communications budget to work with! So we keep an eye out for fundraising advice that’s especially relevant for smaller nonprofits. Here’s an example from Doodig Blogs. This article — 5 Top Fundraising Mistakes ...  Read more

From a recent post by marketing maven Seth Godin: "…someone’s worldview, how they feel about risk or other factors, is beyond your ability to change in the short run. Sell people something they’re interesting in buying. If you can’t leverage the worldview they already ...  Read more

Last week we talked about going the extra mile to recognize donor loyalty. Here’s an illustration I didn’t want you to miss from Jessica Harrington at Schultz & Williams … "We’re absolutely doing this!  For one organization’s first renewal, we ...  Read more

I love Todd Cohen’s Philanthropy Journal. Excellent range of content. I’m a faithful reader. But I hate this March 26 headline: Fundraising out of sync with giving habits Todd’s story leads as follows: "Technology is changing the way people give, with different ...  Read more

Convio has produced this valuable white paper on generational giving patterns. It’s based on a 2010 survey of 1500 recent donors to nonprofits. The paper is framed around four segments — Matures, Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. It’s chock full of data on how different generations give ...  Read more

Heaps of practical advice on monthly giving programs in this exchange between Lisa Sargent and Jo Sullivan. Jo grew ASPCA’s monthly giving program from 9,.000 donors to 140,000 in the span of ten years. That qualifies as success in my book! Jo talks about cultivation of monthy donors, who ...  Read more

Responding to our Boomers Reinventing 50  post, Sarah Spengler commented: "Tom – interesting that you should talk about AARP and their advertizing campaign:  I just received some materials from them, having joined. very recently.  Among their offerings are discounts on ...  Read more