Person: Geoff Peters

Q-and-A With Jo Sullivan

Abny Santicola

As announced last week, Jo Black Sullivan, who has served at the ASPCA for a decade — most recently as executive vice president of external affairs — has accepted a position with CDR Fundraising Group as senior director of integrated marketing and manager of direct-response television. We had a chance to catch up with her last week and to talk about what she’ll be doing at CDR, keys to her successes at ASPCA and what she believes the future holds for the nonprofit sector.

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Feature Follow-up

To: Geoff Peters
I enjoyed your article in FundRaising Success (“Fundraising and the Economy,” January). Couldn’t have come out at a better time. Your explanation of the two most vulnerable channels is insightful, and your multichannel point is right on target.

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Thoughts on Baby Boomers and Direct Mail

Geoff Peters

Aside from looming postal issues, the future of direct mail looks increasingly bright because of an inevitable massive expansion of your prime audience. It is well-known that among the various fundraising channels, direct mail appeals mostly to the oldest demographic. Your files typically have a median donor age of mid-70s.

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Fundraising and the Economy

Geoff Peters

Whenever the economy enters a recession, parts of the fundraising industry and much of the commercial industry enter “crisis mode.” The two most vulnerable giving channels are probably 1) corporate donors, sponsors and partners (particularly among corporations hit hardest by the recession) and 2) foundations, because their assets have decreased so significantly.

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Don’t Toy With the Marine Corps

Melissa Busch

A U.S. Marine in his dress blues remains stone-faced as a young boy looks up and asks him if he’s Santa Claus. “Heard you might be him,” the boy says. “If you are him, here’s my list.” Finally, the serviceman acknowledges the boy, opening his white-gloved hand to take the list. Walking away, the boy says, “He is Santa Claus.” That public service announcement for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program has been melting hearts and opening wallets for 10 years, continuing the tradition that has allowed the 60-year-old organization to bring more than 386 million shiny, new toys to

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The Next Big Thing

All hail the next big thing! Everyone is looking for it … or running from it … or a little of both. “What’s next” is a huge topic of conversation anywhere you go in the fundraising sector. And because the lure of that magic fundraising bullet is so seductive, it’s way too easy to get caught up in its siren call — you know … that sublimely hypnotic melody that wraps itself around your overworked brain and soothes away the trauma of your last failed direct-mail package, those hugely expensive test mailings, the CAN-SPAM bugaboos, and links that take forever to load and then

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Reach for the Stars!

Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Since day one, I’ve held that those of us who are responsible for putting out FundRaising Success learn more from our readers than our readers learn from us. And this year’s Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards have served to punctuate that belief. Each year, we send out nominating forms that are nice and neat, with perfectly balanced categories that cover what we think are all the bases. And each year, we name winners in those respective categories. But this year, the nominations weren’t so cut and dry, and we were reminded that there are thousands of fundraising pros out there who toil in

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Innovate, Integrate

Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Ah, whimsy. It really is my thing. So I was totally tickled when Convio President Sheeraz Haji walked into a session being presented by Scottish fundraising powerhouse Bernard Ross at the Bridge Conference in D.C. last month. Sheeraz is quite the nice guy, but it wasn’t his mere presence that gave me the giggles.

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