Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Direct mail: How To Beat The Control

Donor acquisition is entering its 6th year of a prolonged and steady slump for most organizations. And probably another year of playing the blame game —“poor lists”, “weak economy”, “increased competition” — won’t make things better. Neither will ordering your copywriters, no matter how talented, to “beat the control” be of any help. After 40+ […]

Learn More February 1, 2012

Needed: Hispanic Donors

Unless, of course, your nonprofit can afford to ignore the fastest growing population segment in the US. By 2050, one in three Americans will be Hispanic. Yet the Agitator hardly ever sees any fundraising mention of the Hispanic audience. So we were gratified to see this article regarding a charity that has built a Hispanic […]

Learn More January 31, 2012

Flat Earth Fundraising: Moneyball

I have a suggestion for the conference planners at AFP, DMA, CASE and every other association in our nonprofit galaxy: Scrap two hours, 13 minutes of “seen this, heard that” sessions, serve free popcorn, and treat your registrants to a screening of Moneyball. I’m serious. Here’s why. Moneyball, the 2003 iconoclastic bestseller by Michael Lewis […]

Learn More January 30, 2012

Surveying Your Donors – Tips and How (not) To’s…

Up until this point, we’ve not blogged much on survey research design and best practices – a 101 or “how to” kind of post. We are going to start now and hopefully, it is useful. If not, speak up. A caveat upfront; our view is that survey research, especially questionnaire design and analysis is not […]

Learn More January 27, 2012

Be The First On Your Block!

There’s testing. And then there’s brain impulse measuring. This article from The Guardian reports that 10% of prime time TV ads have been developed using neuromarketing techniques … reading the brain’s reactions to creative stimulus in real time. So, I’m wondering … who will be first in the nonprofit sector to don the EEG headset? […]

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New Environment For NGOs & Advocates

In this slide presentation, Lee Rainie of Pew Internet presents ten “fresh realities” of the digital age that NGOs (and others) must contend with to succeed in persuading others. What Rainie says, much of it related to the explosion of social media and mobile communications, applies to all messaging and communications, which makes these observations […]

Learn More January 26, 2012