Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Pass The Dopamine, Please

In an article titled “The Joy of Giving,” The Economist reports on brain research that seeks to explain the mental processes involved in making donations. Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke used a standard technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging to map the brain activity that occurred when test subjects were […]

Learn More October 24, 2006

The Philanthropy 400

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has released its annual Philanthropy 400 survey. Get your hands on the full report. But here, from the publicly released summary, are some highlights that impressed The Agitator: Donations to the largest 400 charities grew by 13% in 2005, to $62.7 billion (the second year of double digit growth … 2004 […]

Learn More October 23, 2006

If A Tree Falls In The Forest …

… and no one is there to hear it, was there a sound? I can't make up my mind. Should I be following the meltdown of the ACLU for lessons in how a venerable nonprofit brand can self-destruct? Or is this internecine warfare merely “inside baseball” as one ACLU ally put it … real only […]

Learn More October 22, 2006

Are You Addicted?

No, not to love. According to Reuters, researchers at Stanford University's School of Medicine have reported a new malady … Internet Addiction. Here's the profile YOU might fit (I know I do): 13.7% find it hard to stay offline for several days at a time. (Days? How about hours?!) 12.4% often stay online longer than […]

Learn More October 21, 2006

Building Better Email Lists

Here are some very practical pointers on building email subscriber lists that are responsive and durable. From Return Path, a leading email marketing vendor. While the illustrations draw from the commercial marketing world, with a little imagination you can connect the dots to apply this advice in the nonprofit setting. Each of the following points […]

Learn More October 20, 2006

This Is Not Davy Crockett

No, this is C. John Wilder. But he's certainly determined to give the world something else to remember Texas for. Get to know him. As CEO of TXU, the largest utility in Texas, he's pushing a plan, fast-tracked by Texas' Governor Perry, to build eleven new coal-burning power plants that will double the CO2 emissions […]

Learn More October 19, 2006