Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Giving Totals for 2006

In case you missed it over the holidays, a survey for the Wall Street Journal conducted by Harris Interactive found that 83% of Americans contributed to a charity in 2006, with average total giving of $1220 (down about a hundred bucks from 2005). Here are the categories used, with percentage of respondents giving to each. […]

Learn More January 2, 2007

Wanted: Mavericks

From our archives. Happy New Year! Have you ever just run with an idea? Had a hunch … set up a test or experiment to prove it out … and done all this without permission or an approved budget? Then you'd qualify as a “maverick” according to Polly LaBarre (a former senior editor at Fast […]

Learn More January 1, 2007

Kid Squanders Relief Money

If you've been reading The Agitator over the holidays, you've seen we've been having some fun — hopefully spreading Christmas cheer — courtesy of one of our favorite humor sources, The Onion. This is our absolute favorite “report” from The Onion, originally posted on The Agitator back in July … but just a teaser here: […]

Learn More December 31, 2006

Are Your Email Campaigns Getting Delivered?

From our archives. Happy Holidays! Or are they winding up in the electronic equivalent of the “round mail box?” With online fundraising and activist engagement becoming more and more central to nonprofits' marketing strategies, it's critical that fundraisers and campaigners know that their e-messaging is actually getting delivered. Do you know how much of your […]

Learn More December 30, 2006

Get Your Email Marketing Right

From our archives. Happy Holidays! Print out this piece by direct marketer extraordinaire Denny Hatch. Yes, like on paper. So you can easily periodically review its wisdom. You see, Hatch seems to believe, and The Agitator agrees, that there are some fundamental direct marketing rules that apply across media … even to email marketing. He […]

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Defending the Status Quo

From our archives. Happy Holidays! Seth Godin lists these 17 excuses for defending the status quo. I can't help rounding it out to twenty with these three additions: “I could never sell this to the folks upstairs.” “My successor can worry about it.” “We've got plenty of good ideas, just no time to pursue them.” […]

Learn More December 29, 2006