Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Marketing to Hispanics

I know … "Belford, we’re sweating making our fundraising budget this year, 2009 looks even more challenging, and you’re blogging on targeting Hispanics … what planet are you living on?! Fine, spend 90% of your efforts on paying the rent. But unless your nonprofit is prepared to hang a "No Hispanics Wanted Here" sign on […]

Learn More December 12, 2008

Internet Gains As Preferred Source Of Political News

Two reports were issued amidst the pre-election buzz that deserve the attention of nonprofit communicators, especially those working in advocacy organizations. The first study, from Pew Research Center, shows that the internet now surpasses all media except television as a preferred source for political news. A big jump from 2004. And what is really striking […]

Learn More December 11, 2008

The Secret Millionaire vs Jacques Cousteau

Two colleagues of mine, Ryann Miller and Caity Craver — both from DonorTrends and both a generation younger — recently shared with me this email exchange they had. The topic: TV "reality shows" based on giving away big sums of money. Perhaps you’ve seen these programs. I haven’t. But I will admit that decades ago […]

Learn More December 10, 2008

Now Be Honest

Over the years, we’ve seen that most donors give on average to six or seven charities or causes. Maybe you fit this profile. I’m going to presume that most of the nonprofits you personally support communicate regularly with you via email (assuming you’ve given them permission). Now I ask you to be honest … Do […]

Learn More December 9, 2008

In Fundraising, Size Matters

Now, if ever, we all need to lift up our sights, widen our horizons and strive for the lofty. In lowliness and commonness there is no hope. One of the joys of sharing The Agitator with Tom is there are no control-freak editors. We each have our say. So, today, I’m pre-empting one of Tom’s […]

Learn More December 8, 2008

Important Email Marketing Lessons

Return Path, an email marketing consultancy, offers some excellent recommendations about managing your email marketing (donor and activist) files. Their report, based on studying 61 leading commercial email marketers, is called: Keeping the Subscriber Experience Positive After "Unsubscribe Me" (you’ll need to register at ReturnPath to download). Some interesting factoids: 30% of these companies never […]

Learn More December 5, 2008