Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Fire The Top 83 Direct Response Fundraisers?

Yesterday, Target Analytics published its Index of National Fundraising Performance for the 12 months ending December 31, 2010. Not a pretty picture. And frankly, if I were the CEO or a Board Member of one of the 83 big organizations included in this Index, I’d probably be looking for some new resumes to replace some […]

Learn More April 7, 2011

Students Use Online Advocacy

Harvard’s Institute of Politics has collected some interesting data on college-age and young adults and their online advocacy. As reported in ClickZ Marketing News … “Among 18- to 29-year-old Facebook users, 21 percent said they’ve used Facebook to advocate for a political position, 29 percent have liked an issue, and 24 percent have liked a […]

Learn More April 6, 2011

Cause Marketing Dampens Giving?

As reported by Marketing Daily, here’s a study from the University of Michigan Business School that suggests cause marketing dampens giving. Marketing professor Aradhna Krishna conducted studies involving 300 college students to see whether consumers who bought products linked to a social cause would reduce subsequent donations to that cause. She found that charitable giving […]

Learn More April 5, 2011

Ridiculous Top 16!

Sorry, I’m in a bad mood today. Probably shouldn’t be writing this post. But Roger promised that we would “shake things up a bit more” this year. So here goes. I opened this recent article in Fundraising Success with great anticipation — 16 Provocative Ideas That Will Raise More Money. Helluva promise. This was supposed […]

Learn More April 4, 2011

Are You Talking To Hispanics?

Here from Pew Research is a nice wrap-up of the 2010 US Census figures as they relate to America’s Hispanic population. We all know the growth is strong — 43% over the past decade. America’s 50.5 million Hispanics now account for 16.3% of the US population. Five states — New Mexico, Texas, California, Arizona and […]

Learn More April 1, 2011

Emotion Not Enough

Jerry Huntsinger is one of the best copywriters ever. So I tremble at the thought of disagreeing with him. But in this recent addition to his growing creative tutorial on SOFII, he applauds the emotional content and impact of a fundraising letter he shows us regarding mentally handicapped children. And indeed, the letter packs a […]

Learn More March 31, 2011