Friday, February 26th, 2010
If you are trying to figure out Millennials (the 18-29 year old generation), here from Pew Research is the study you’ve been waiting for. The Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change looks at Millennials across all dimensions — lifestyle, technology use, social and political ... Read more
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Here is a fairly detailed examination of online activity by age, prepared by Pew Internet Research. What I like about this slide presentation is that a wide range of internet activities (25 in all) is parsed against six different age cohorts, from Gen Y to GI Generation. What I don’t like ... Read more
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Blackbaud’s Steve MacLaughlin recently published this slide show reporting the 2009 online fundraising figures for 2,335 nonprofits (all transactions processed by Blackbaud). The report also provides year-over-year comparisons based upon returns for 1,703 organizations. It’s a ... Read more
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
The direct mail slump continues. In fact, Target Analytics’ 2009 Index of National Fundraising Performance for the Third Quarter indicates the decline is speeding up. What strikes me as most worrisome is that now both donor acquisition and donor development (house file activity) are in ... Read more
Monday, December 7th, 2009
Based on research conducted for them by Forrester Research, Convio estimates that online giving to nonprofits in the US will top $4 billion this holiday season (Nov 1-Dec 31 — up from $3.1 billion in 2008). The Convio study is full of other tidbits on how donors are using internet-based ... Read more
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) recently did a study of online fundraising at more than 550 colleges, universities and independent schools. What fundraisers at these institutions reported is appalling. There appears to be very little understanding in the sector of ... Read more
Monday, September 14th, 2009
OK, summer is over, you’ve had a week to get back into work mode, and so The Agitator is ready to offer some heavy lifting this week. We’ve been saving up some important stuff on social media. First up is a new report from the Pew internet Project, called The Internet & Civic ... Read more
Friday, August 28th, 2009
As reported here by MediaPost, Forrester Research, a leading marketing and media research outfit, has released an extensive study on U.S. usage of social media. At this point, four out of five U.S. online adults report using social media at least once per month. Half participate in sites like ... Read more
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
Here is ENGAGEMENTdb, a study of the top 100 global brands (as rated by Business Week/Interbrand) and their use of social media, done by two firms that specialize in the space, Wetpaint and Altimeter Group. I’ll jump right to the conclusion: "… the most valuable brands in the ... Read more
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
Many thanks to Abny Santicola at Fundraising Success mag for pointing us to the latest usability testing on nonprofit websites by design guru Jakob Nielsen. Nielsen is the best at this. His methodology is to observe in realtime how visitors actually use websites, read e-newsletters, etc. I wish ... Read more
