Meet the Broker: Mark Briggs
Today we meet Mark Briggs, a senior account executive with Specialized Fundraising Services for the past two years.
Briggs mainly brokers lists for an L.W. Robbins-run food bank cooperative, comprised of about 50 food banks serving areas ranging in size from northern Iowa to New York City.
Before joining Specialized, he was database marketing manager at theEastern Paralyzed Veterans Association (now the United Spinal Association). A 26-year industry veteran who began his career at the lettershop Pep Direct, Briggs has seen the industry both grow and contract.
“When I first started it seems there were lots of new lists coming out every six months that you could recommend for tests and the industry was definitely in growth mode,” he says. “The Internet hadn’t started up yet so there was so much out there to recommend. People were making money on acquisitions, so it made sense to mail all you could for acquisition.”
But things began getting a little tighter, as list companies began consolidating and fewer new firms were starting up. “And then the Internet started up and that changed things as people tried to figure out how to integrate the multichannel market and the best frequency to contact a donor,” he says.
Nevertheless, direct mail remains the preferred medium as far as his clients and many other nonprofit mailers are concerned.
For these reasons, Briggs is concerned with what’s going on with the U.S. Postal Service.
“Obviously they’re the prime way our appeals are delivered and every day you hear about bigger deficits
