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

Here are the stats on direct mail volumes from the latest USPS Household Diary Study (2008). As reported by the Center for Media Research, key factoids include: U.S. Households received 148.6 billion mail pieces in 2008, of which 63% was advertising. Income, education and age of head of ...  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

Here’s the latest report on online video use from Pew Internet Project. As the charts below indicate, 62% of U.S. online adults have watched online video. Amongst those with broadband access, that figure is 69%, with nearly one-in-four watching in any given day. Online video watching ...  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

Yesterday, we asked readers to take our Mid-Year Assessment survey … Has the first half half of 2009 met expectations? How are fundraisers tweaking their programs or adjusting their fundraising investments? We won’t publish results till next week, but early returns suggest that folks ...  Read more

Avid Agitator readers will recall that we took your fundraising "pulse" as 2008 ended, and we anticipated a bleak 2009. With 2009 half gone, it’s time for a mid-year pulse check. Take our very brief survey here. More optimistic or less? Have you adjusted any of your fundraising ...  Read more

At the risk of signaling my age, I’m pleased to report that all those Saturday mornings of watching Mr. Wizard on black & white TV paid off. I just scored 100% on Pew Research Center’s science quiz. Mr. Wizard would be proud! You can take the quiz here. Of  greater ...  Read more

Half way through the year, like the mythical Janus, capable of viewing the past and future at the same time, I’m leafing through a pile of good stuff I should have passed on to Agitator readers, but somehow didn’t. Shame on me.  BUT … it’s not to late to put this ...  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