Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Holiday Food For Thought

If you’re not spendng most of the Thanksgiving holiday traveling, here’s some food for thought over your quiet moments. Something to worry about longer term than making your 2008 fundraising targets! Pew Research has released its detailed analysis of voters under age-30, based on exit polling from the recent election. Here are some numbers that […]

Learn More November 26, 2008

Our Tips For Fundraising In Tough Times

Last Friday, The Agitator hosted over 70 nonprofit fundraisers in a "tele-briefing" on "Fundraising in Tough Times." We reviewed fundraisers’ responses to our recent Vital Signs surveys (results here and here) and offered our advice on how to cope. Attesting to the level of concern out there, we had more attempted subscribers than "seats" for […]

Learn More November 24, 2008

Weekend Edition: Fundraising Warning Bells

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 17th. On down days Grandma Craver attempted to brighten life with the reminder. “Cheer up, Roger. Things could be worse.” Well, this week they got worse, at least where the economy and fundraising is concerned. The warning bells of impending fundraising doom are sounding with more and more frequency and volume. Increasing […]

Learn More November 22, 2008

Fundraising Vital Signs – Response Update

We have now completed two cycles of our Fundraising Vital Signs surveys, in which we ask readers of The Agitator to share their prognostications regarding the fundraising outlook for the balance of 2008 (see Survey 1 results here). Our overall response profile remains the same: three-of-four respondents work in a nonprofit organization; the other respondents […]

Learn More November 21, 2008

The Video-Centric Nonprofit

Here from Dave Dutch of web consulting and software firm Vignette, via Mediapost, is the most gushing vision I’ve seen lately of the role of online video in a corporate setting. He refers to the "video-centric enterprise." But think about the applications for your "video-centric nonprofit" as I quote at length: "Video’s importance … […]

Learn More November 20, 2008

Motrin: A Lesson In Issue Campaigning

As told by Ad Age, here is a fascinating account of the brouhaha over a recent — now deceased — advertising campaign for Motrin, the painkiller. It’s left some executives at Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit consuming a lot of their own medicine! The ads were an attempt by Motrin to connect and […]

Learn More November 19, 2008