The Agitator

Before the internet, many cause organizations represented the only trusted source of in-depth information available nationwide on issues that people cared passionately about. If you really wanted to delve into money and politics, you joined Common Cause. Into human rights, you joined Amnesty ...  Read more

For those of you who really do want to download Lisa Sargent’s 99 Nonprofits, try this link. My error. Still learning to cut & paste … which could explain why I’m so focused on the basics! Tom SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Speaking Of Back To The Basics!", url ...  Read more

Last week, I raised the question of whether your donors relate to your organization as "friends" or merely "acquaintances?" The hypothesis being that donor loyalty requires building a "friend" relationship. I suggested a simple first step, like including photos of the ...  Read more

Here’s another prediction of the death of direct mail, as reported on frogloop. Says research firm Borrell, spending on direct mail will decline by 40% over the next five years. Get a move on direct mail fundraisers! In five years your medium will be dead. Just like radio. Forget this ...  Read more

We’ve been talking about the value of market (i.e., donor) research lately, and how/when to listen to it. So my curiosity was peaked when this article by Karl Greenberg, Market Research Must Get Real, Not ideal, popped up. The article cites Nathan Berg, a professor of economics at the ...  Read more

A recent study by Blackbaud’s Target Marketing on online fundraising (Roger commented here) noted that many donors who make their first gift online wind up making their subsequent gifts, if any, via direct mail. Agitator reader Dave Raley has a theory about this. I reproduce his comment ...  Read more

If anyone deserved more than one funeral, it was Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity. When I reported Millard’s death in The Agitator last month, I just wanted to get the word out the day his extraordinary life ended. The next day he was buried in a simple pine box at ...  Read more

We’re seeing some discussion by fundraising consultants of their clients’ year-end results. Here are two examples … M+R Strategic Services (look for "Ups & Downs of Online Giving") talks about theirs … with interesting results from Oxfam America. And Nick ...  Read more

No one knows for sure what makes for great viral marketing. And those who claim to know are usually wrong. One thing’s for sure, the message and the technique not only have to shock or surprise they have to glide along on top of the current wave and capture the moment just like any ...  Read more

Here’s some data re online video used by BrightRoll, the internet’s biggest online advertising network. 1. Video is Bigger Than Search: 12 billion videos are watched per month vs. 10.5 billion searches conducted. 2. Video Consumption is Quickly Moving Online: 19% of total video ...  Read more