Photo: Flickr/Tony

• Lydia DePillis says Washington, D.C. needs a fiscally-conservative alternative to the lefty D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, the only think tank focused on the city’s local government.
• Are participants in marathons and other event-based fundraisers really donors in the same sense as direct-marketing donors? Tom Belford says no.
• Pork Barrel Barbecue has released a barbecue-scented fragrance. Really.
• It’s not clear why repairing ill-maintained local transit infrastructure ought to be a federal responsibility.
• Last but not least, Conan O’Brien spoke last week at Dartmouth’s commencement:

  

The winning splash page variant. Photo: Optimizely

President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign ran an excellent online operation. Much of their success derived from their successful use of A/B testing.

In an article on Optimizely, Dan Siroker explains a test the Obama campaign ran on the website’s splash page. They tested both the content of the page–pictures and video–and the wording of the call to action. They used the winning variant through the rest of the campaign, driving increased signups and increased revenue.

Siroker also reminds us a marketer’s intuition isn’t necessarily right:

Before we ran the experiment, the campaign staff heavily favored “Sam’s Video” (the last one in the slideshow shown above). Had we not run this experiment, we would have very likely used that video on the splash page. That would have been a huge mistake since it turns out that all of the videos did worse than all of the images.

2. A few simple changes that can improve your e-commerce checkout page

In a post on Smashing Magazine, Christian Holst outlines 11 “fundamental guidelines” for e-commerce usability.

Perhaps the most universally relevant guideline is his suggestion to visually reinforce the security of credit card fields. This resolves an important issue that comes up with e-commerce forms of all sorts, including donation forms: “Customers might hesitate if credit card fields don’t appear secure (regardless of actual security).”

“By adding visual cues (such as borders, background color, and security icons and badges) around the form fields for credit cards,” Holst argues, “you can increase their perceived security for non-technical customers.”

Other tips include:

• Make the checkout process linear, without redirecting users to a previous step
• Apply clear labels to form fields and buttons
• Use shipping address as billing address by default
• Allow users to complete the transaction without registering
• Request only pertinent information

Implementing even some of these changes—testing, of course, to ensure they work—can result in large increases in conversion rate and revenue. Holst’s guide offers essential first steps for anyone looking to improve the effectiveness of their online transaction pages.

Photo: Flickr/Kayla Bailey

• Mark Steyn reminds us that “a ‘multicultural’ society needs not sensitivity training but insensitivity training — that’s to say, thicker skins.”
• This infographic reminds us that text fundraising is very, very expensive–and that giving is capped at $10 per gift.
• “Megabus and Coach USA are owned by the British company Stagecoach Group, and they have fundamentally changed the way Americans—especially the young—travel, so much so that they may help kill plans for new railroads.”
• Dependency on government continues apace: 1 in 7 Americans use food stamps.
• Last but not least, The EPA has produced a rap about climate change. Seriously.

Photo: Flickr/coltera

• Municipalities are contracting out various public services like libraries and parking enforcement to private enterprises, and the Washington Post outlines some of the challenges of this approach. Unfortunately, the Post inaccurately describes this as privatization, which is when government divests itself entirely from a current function. Contracting the function while maintaining ultimate responsibility for its provision is simply outsourcing.
• Stephen Smith points out that when it comes to “privatization” of government parking facilities, “the ‘owners’ are barely even allowed to set their own prices, nevermind decide to use their land for, *gasp* something other than parking.”
• Adam at PlayNice.ly looks into what’s required to establish a merchant account for credit card processing. Smashing Magazine covers the same ground and suggests a few payment processors. Fundraisers should take special note of Adam’s warnings about PayPal, which may impose long-run costs hidden by its easy setup.
• The reliably progressive StreetsBlog argues that it would be a mistake to cut federal funding for bike paths and rail transit, which it argues are cost-effective. But even if a program is cost-effective, does that mean the federal government ought to spend money on it?
• Last but not least, Oregon lawmakers rick-roll the legislature:

  

1. The Agitator. With its analysis of innovative fundraising techniques, marketing studies and psychology, The Agitator provides online fundraisers with excellent food for thought. Authors Tom Belford and Roger Craver frequently remind us, for example in their recent post on personalized e-mail communication, that online marketing follows the same principles as other marketing.
2. Copyblogger. Copyblogger provides excellent insight into how to write engaging and effective copy for the web, whether for e-mail, blog posts, landing pages or social media. The series on headline writing, for instance, helped redefine how I create copy for the web and for e-mail.
3. Media Post’s E-mail Insider. Geared more towards advanced users, E-mail Insider is nonetheless a must-read for those trying to raise funds online. Many posts are gems, like this best-practices checklist that both new and established e-mail program managers can return to again and again.
4. Connection Café. Written by consultants at non-profit software company Convio, Connection Café is geared to online fundraising novices and includes good posts on the basics, like a list of simple rules for e-mail composition.

Direct mail and new media are complementary and reinforce one another.  Even with the best online fundraising campaign, you’d still be leaving money on the table without an offline component, just as with the best direct mail campaign you’d be forgoing funds without an online effort.

Bad news: America’s economy is less free now than it was a year ago.

The Agitator makes the case that donations in response to disaster don’t constitute fundraising as such.

Daniel Larison asks a good question: are illiberal governments necessarily a threat to free governments?