As Christmas approaches Tom can’t find his Grinch costume. Roger’s out of coal. So we did the next best thing: made our list, checked it twice, and found out which posts were ‘naughty’ and which were ‘nice.

The Agitator’s esteemed Department of Analytics carefully measured which 2011 posts received the most readership, which garnered the most comments, and which did both.

The result? Something we’ve always suspected. Agitator readers are discerning, forward-looking , and renaissance-like in their interests. Frankly, we expected no less, but it’s always nice to have suspicions statistically confirmed.

In the Department of Forward-looking, our ‘Flat Earth Fundraising‘ series challenging some of the myths and conventions of our trade won high marks for both readership and comments, as did our report on The Future of Fundraising a summary of the “brainiac” session hosted by Blackbaud and moderated and summarized by Adrian Sargeant in Growing Philanthropy in the U.S.

As part of our expedition into the future we also set up The Agitator Lab and, along with DonorVoice broke important new ground on donor retention and loyalty with the first national Donor Commitment  and Retention Study.

Hundreds of Agitator readers participated in webinars and briefings on the Study’s findings  and more than 15 organizations contributed their files to confirm the findings of the national survey. Not everyone was smitten. Some of the 50 national groups whose level of commitment we measured weren’t happy with their low scores and we probably won’t receive a Christmas poinsettia from them.

Fortunately the majority of organizations studied followed up and many are now undertaking more detailed studies to better understand donor commitment and improve their retention rates. Tom’s post, Wouldn’t You Want to Know? pretty much explains why.

In the Department of  Renaissance-thinking, our crack analysts note that not only are Agitator readers interested in big picture, trend-oriented content, but also devour fundraising tips and insights.   Our post on Mark Phillips of the UK’s Bluefrog  fundraising agency’s dry as toast entry called What We Learned at the IFC is one of the year’s must reads. Running neck in neck with Mark’s insights are our posts on Asking Amounts, Infographics Say It With Impact on the benefits of multi-channel fundraising … and even a piece on a the importance of letter spacing in a letter, titled, Magic Fundraising Machine Boosts ROI.

However, looking ahead, Tom’s post, Are Online Fundraisers Stealing Credit? is coming on fast in terms of most read. Starting a food fight between direct mail and online fundraisers is sure to get attention!

Whatever the reason (our esteemed Analytics Department hasn’t the foggiest idea), both the number of readers and their level of participation through the Comments Section and via email to us reached a record high this year. We are grateful.

And, always mindful of George Bernard Shaw’s counsel  that “the mediocre borrow, genius steals” we’re  thankful for the diligence and insight of folks like Ken Burnett at SOFII … Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now, Katya Andresen at The Nonprofit Marketing Blog and, in fact all the talented folks listed in The Agitator’s Blog Roll. They help fill the larder that nourishes us all.

What do you think was ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ in this year’s Agitator?

Season’s Greetings,

Roger and Tom