Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Sharing Personal Information

At the heart of usage of online social networking is one’s attitude toward sharing personal information. Here’s a chart from a new study of the ‘Gen Next" (Gen Y, born 1977 or after) by the Pew Research Center. 62% of under-30s believe that sharing personal information via the internet is a good thing, so it’s […]

Learn More June 9, 2009

Are You OK With 1 Percent?

That’s the question asked by Steve MacLaughlin, Director of Internet Solutions at Blackbaud, in a recent blog post. He’s talking about the fact that, on average, online fundaising appeals get less than a 1% response rate … indeed, the average is less than 0.2%. Steve looked at data from the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study done […]

Learn More June 8, 2009

The Payoff From Inspiring Donors

Yesterday, in light of declining donor retention rates, we raised the question of whether nonprofits were doing an adequate job of inspiring their donors. Here’s a response from Jay Love, CEO of software solutions provider eTapestry. His firm is participating in the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, an initiative sponsored by the Urban Institute, Association of Fundraising […]

Learn More June 5, 2009

How To Inspire

Terry Barber, "chief inspirator" at Grizzard Communications, recently offered some critical advice in Forbes.com to business readers. His article was called Your Business Can inspire People the Way Nonprofits Do. It’s not often you see consultants telling businesses to model themselves after nonprofits. In this case, he’s dead right. Here are the four key nonprofit […]

Learn More June 4, 2009

Most Important Rule in Marketing?

My vote goes to Pareto’s 80/20 rule — 80% of the value or activity tends to come from 20% (or less) of customers, or whatever the active universe. The rule is confirmed in marketing scenario after scenario, including fundraising. Most recently, a Harvard Business Review study, reported here in Business Insider, finds that 90% of […]

Learn More June 3, 2009

Digital Friendships

Here, from Stephen Baker at Business Week, is a superb article on the psychology, sociology and anthropology of "digital friendships" — you know, all those online relationships you have on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc, etc. I liked this passage: "Now we’re swimming in information. We can call up nearly every bit of news, music, […]

Learn More June 2, 2009