Award Winning Blog - Agitator

“Must” Weekend Reading From Pew

Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism has just released State of the American News Media, 2007: Mainstream Media Go Niche. If news coverage matters to your nonprofit, and your role involves scratching for some, then you should read this report … or you oughta be fired. How the news biz is struggling to remain viable […]

Learn More March 17, 2007

Privacy Matters

Abny Santicola at Fundraising Success Advisor has put together a great package of articles on privacy policies for nonprofits, including a checklist for formulating your own organization's policy. We think you'll find these articles very useful, together with the further sources Abny cites. Especially given the complexities posed by online data collection and distribution. The […]

Learn More March 16, 2007

Best Ever Direct Mail – Getting Business

So far in our “Best Ever Direct Mail” series, we featured these fundraising appeals from the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the National Psoriasis Foundation. But agencies and consultants need to prospect too. And a couple have shared their winning business pitch letters with The Agitator. First is a letter from consumer advocate and (self-described) […]

Learn More March 15, 2007

Red Nose Day

Mike Johnston of HJC New Media, friend and fundraiser for causes in Canada, reminds us that Friday the 16th is Red Nose Day, a glorious young tradition in the UK (and a few other enlightened countries). Red Nose Day is a day of nationwide consciousness raising for efforts to assist the disadvantaged in the UK […]

Learn More March 14, 2007

Nonprofits Using MySpace

With traffic on social networking site MySpace continuing to soar, many nonprofits are experimenting with creating their own “personalities” on the site. This is great, so long as … 1. You've “taken care of business” first. Don't divert resources to experimenting until you're pretty confident about your basics — e-mail messaging and solicitation with great […]

Learn More March 13, 2007

Know Thy Customer (Donor, Member, Activist)

If there's any principle more fundamental to marketing success, The Agitator sure can't think of it. Suggestions welcome! Knowing your customer means more than operating on gut instinct, wishful thinking or the perhaps dated presumptions of your nonprofit's founding fathers and mothers. It means … First, collecting pertinent data on individual customer characteristics and behavior, […]

Learn More March 12, 2007