The Agitator

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

If you’re in the biz of targeting online ads for member acquisition, fundraising or issue persuasion, here are two articles that illustrate the data-driven capabilities that exist. The first deals mainly with the Republican Party’s use of voter registration data to help target GOTV ads ...  Read more

Chuck Pruitt of A.B Data thinks the dire predictions of the death of direct mail are groundless. And he’s angry they seem to get such credence (though certainly that’s not the case in the annals of The Agitator … just Search our site using "direct mail’!) ...  Read more

Happy to hand the megaphone today to Guest Agitator Janice Christensen, for her thoughts on the powerful mobilizing — and through that, fundraising — role of Twitter. Janice is the former Director of Campaigns of Amnesty International USA, a board member of the Torture Abolition and ...  Read more

Here from Pew Research is — for my money — the definitive report on the role of the internet in last year’s election. Below are some topline findings from Pew’s report, but you should treat this as "must read" if you are serious about engaging folks online around ...  Read more

Two reports were issued amidst the pre-election buzz that deserve the attention of nonprofit communicators, especially those working in advocacy organizations. The first study, from Pew Research Center, shows that the internet now surpasses all media except television as a preferred source for ...  Read more

If you’re not spendng most of the Thanksgiving holiday traveling, here’s some food for thought over your quiet moments. Something to worry about longer term than making your 2008 fundraising targets! Pew Research has released its detailed analysis of voters under age-30, based on exit ...  Read more

Just when you need to send one critical email before you dash off, or are at the juiciest part of the conversation … Your internet service disappears, or your computer freezes (or worse, does that never-ending hourglass or spinning wheel thing), or your cellphone fails. According to this ...  Read more

Roger’s piece yesterday on Obama’s historic victory got me reminiscing about my own formative political experience, which happens to date to 1968, when the Vietnam war and racial tensions were the driving, divisive factors in the presidential election.So, if you’ll indulge me a ...  Read more

Yesterday morning as I stood in the autumn sunshine of our little New England town of Chilmark, Massachusetts waiting to vote I couldn’t help but marvel at how far we as a nation have come on fundamental issues like race and how long it’s taken us to get here. It’s now been 40 ...  Read more