Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Two Most Important Donor Questions

Roger made an off-hand comment in his recent keynote presentation to the Fundraising Success Virtual Conference & Expo. He noted what he thinks are the two most important questions donors ask of a nonprofit: 1. Will my contribution make a difference? 2. Did my contribution make a difference? With respect to #1, what result(s) are […]

Learn More May 26, 2010

The Canary In The Data Mine Shaft

Last week, in a piece entitled Is Your Favorite Charity Spying on You?, the Wall Street Journal’s “Smart Money” column set off a mini-firestorm in our trade over the use of data mining for prospect research and donor analytics. Among the tidbits of raw meat tossed into the WSJ piece: “When your favorite nonprofit isn’t […]

Learn More May 25, 2010

E-Commerce Spending Up

comScore reports that e-commerce spending in the US was up 10% in the first quarter of 2010 over the same period in 2009, the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, after four quarters of declining e-commerce spending. A total of $34 billion was spent online in the 1QTR, excluding spending on autos, travel and online […]

Learn More May 24, 2010

Donor Insights From Fenton Communications

Fenton Communications has just released its latest survey of donor attitudes and behavior, looking at 1000 nationally representative US donors who have given at least $20 in the past year. Plenty of interesting findings to chew over here regarding giving plans for the coming year, attributes of nonprofits that donors find most important, most trusted […]

Learn More May 21, 2010

Dr NeuroFocus

“Let me listen to your brain.” That’s the refrain of this catchy video from NeuroFocus, a company that specializes in measuring brain reactions to various stimuli (e.g. words, images, TV commercials, logos, etc) to gain marketing insights. What they claim to measure is attention, emotional engagement, memory retention … to gauge purchase intent, awareness, and […]

Learn More May 20, 2010

Fundraising Technology Even I Like

Here’s the lead paragraph from a recent article in Fast Company: "Anyone–and I do mean anyone–can sign up to use Square and begin accepting credit card payments. Here’s how it works." It’s about a device from SquareUp.com that you (or say, your canvassers, or volunteers at a fundraising event or booth) can use to process […]

Learn More May 19, 2010