Award Winning Blog - Agitator

What Is Influence?

Here's a Monday mind-stretcher on “influence” — what is it, who has it, can “influencers” be influenced? For many nonprofits, especially those in the advocacy business, communication strategies include an element of targeting “influentials.” As the theory goes, certain individuals carry disproportionate weight in terms of their natural inclination and ability to influence others. If […]

Learn More September 24, 2007

Checklist For Year-End Appeals

Many organizations raise the greatest proportion of their funds in the critically important year-end giving season — the extraordinary philanthropic window that opens somewhere in October and stays open through the end of the year. Here's a checklist refined over the years at Craver, Mathews, Smith for developing year-end strategies, plans and creative. I've taken […]

Learn More September 21, 2007

Have You Watched An Online Video Today?

Sorry, but I'm probably going to badger you monthly from here on out with the latest stats on online video watching. As I've written before, I think it is crucial for nonprofits to master this medium for conducting your fundraising, advocacy and educational efforts. According to comScore (all stats for US internet users, July 2007): […]

Learn More September 20, 2007

Moving Messages

Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry, creators of techPresident (the award-winning* place to follow how presidential candidates are using online media), have written a great piece on how messages move in our new internet-driven media environment. The immediate context of their article is the campaigns, and the candidates failure — as the authors see it — […]

Learn More September 19, 2007

A Reminder About Testing

My favorite source of info on direct marketing testing is MarketingSherpa. Yesterday they reported a test they had conducted with their own online newsletters that underscores what it means to get down into the weeds and test everything! They were aiming to improve click through rates from brief items in their various e-newsletters through to […]

Learn More September 18, 2007

The Taxman Cometh

There's no question in our minds that more transparency is called for where the work of non-profits is concerned. Afterall, non-profits are just as likely as for-profit organizations to get fouled up by questionable financial practices. That said, it's highly questionable whether the Internal Revenue Service should be playing the role of expert where the […]

Learn More September 17, 2007