Friday 19 April 2013

Mark Schulhof and Quadriga Art Employees Participate in March of Dimes March for Babies Walk

Every Baby Deserves a Healthy Start to Life…..Mark Schulhof Encourages Employees to take the “First Steps” to Help!

As a leader in the direct marketing industry, Quadriga Art, with leader Mark Schulhof, CEO, has a shared passion and commitment for helping those in need worldwide. Reaching out to communities in which they live and work, volunteering time and efforts and investing in programs that improve the lives of individuals has become a core mission for Mr Schulhof and his team.

Participating in the Company-wide March of Dimes March for Babies Walk connects employees in many ways: to the mission as a Company, to each of us who was provided the blessing of life and to our own employee, Lauren Veri, who has shared her story with us below.

What makes a difference in a child's life to you? Is it having attentive parents, a great teacher or mentor, a loving and encouraging home environment or is it something different? Whatever it is, what happens before answering this question is the blessing of having a baby born as close to term and, most importantly, healthy.

Unfortunately, not every baby starts with a healthy life. But, by supporting a cause, Quadriga Staff will help make the difference by getting involved in the Company-wide March of Dimes March for Babies Walk.

Location information is as follows: April 20 Lynchburg, VA April 28 Baltimore, MD April 28 Manhattan April 28 Voorhees, NJ May 4 Akron, OH May 4 Louisville, KY May 4 W. Burlington, IA May 19 Manchester, NH

A Quadriga Employees' Story:

Our baby girl entered the world 4 weeks early due to complications of preeclampsia and toxemia. Though she was a preemie, due to my gestational diabetes she was 7 pounds 15 oz. On the outside she looked perfectly healthy, but it was clear a few minutes after she was born that she was having trouble breathing. She was quickly taken to the NICU without my husband or I getting a chance to really see or hold her. As it turns out, she had RDS, Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Basically, her lungs were so premature that she wasn't able to maintain healthy levels of oxygen for her little body, and every breath was a struggle.

After two days at the hospital she was born at, Audriana was transferred down to Rainbow Babies and Children's hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, to a higher level NICU. At this point she was put on a ventilator and also was given a feeding tube. My husband and I had not even held our little girl, and we didn't get the chance until she was five days old. It was such a difficult time, but the NICU staff played such a role in making our time there more bearable The organization, March of Dimes, worked hand in hand with the staff at Rainbows to provide us with information, patient advocacy, and all around support for our family while we were there. There was even materials and a bag for my step daughter who is ten. This helped her understand what was happening with her baby sister, and gave her some comfort in a situation that no ten year old truly knows how to handle. The organization also helped to support lunches for the NICU parents, information sessions such as infant massage, and even scrapbook sessions for the moms to make memory books for our little ones.

I am happy to say that she is now a happy and energetic 5 month old who is doing great! Her lung issues have resolved and though she is still tiny for her age, she is growing right on target and hitting all of her milestones! Our stay at the NICU was for 15 days total. Though it was a difficult time for our family, March of Dimes truly played a vital role in getting us the information that we needed to understand what was going on around us and helped make our stay at the hospital a better one. We are so grateful for them and thank everyone for any support they can give such a wonderful organization!

Account Manager, International Data Management

Friday 12 April 2013

Mark Schulhof - Quadriga Art Thought Leadership: Predictive Analytics Can Increase ROI

Imagine the flawless direct marketing campaign: a perfectly crafted appeal reaching the targeted ideal donor, through a medium and with a message so suited to their personality and giving preferences that they not only respond, but with a larger gift than their previous one. Now imagine this scenario played out with every name on your mailing list.

It’s fundraising marketing nirvana, and not likely to happen due to the shifting whims of human nature and the circumstances of life that can alter a donor’s behavior between the time a campaign piece leaves your hands and arrives in theirs.

However, at Quadriga Art LLC, we tackle every customer campaign with this goal in mind, and we utilize a sophisticated tool that helps us get as close to as possible to the ideal ROI: predictive analytics.

With computer models and processes that break down the past and predictive giving details of every donor, the Quadriga Art team and its partners can optimize every piece of our customers’ direct mail. Consider some of the details analytics can provide:

• Knowing who to contact, through which channel, at what time, and with the optimal frequency for the greatest return on the marketing spend.

• Ranking of each person in the customer database according to his or her likelihood to make an annual, planned or major gift, become a member or upgrade their giving. We can sort individuals into relevant market segments, help our clients understand the marketing vehicle and message that is most likely to appeal to each prospect, and identify prospects of wealth. This knowledge provides insight to further target the marketing message, including ask amount, and achieve a higher return on marketing dollars by focusing efforts where they are most likely to be fruitful.

• Identifying groups of individuals that share certain characteristics and will respond to a similar message. Once we identify these market segments, we can craft studies that test different messages, vehicles and times of year to contact these donors until we find the combination that brings in the greatest return.

Quadriga Art excels at high performance fundraising. Predictive analytics is a powerful tool we use to leverage increased revenue and profit for our customers. This mechanism also provides an avenue for helping our clients cut their marketing expenses. By filtering out high-risk prospects, organizations can spend less and improve their ROI. Smart marketing also helps retain donors, reducing the costs associated with acquiring new ones.

With more than 70 years experience in direct marketing for nonprofits and a team of more than 2,500 experts around the globe, Quadriga Art’s culture is founded upon the application of innovative thinking to every facet of direct marketing. Our employment of predictive analytics assures our clients of the most optimum response to their campaign and highest return for their marketing dollars.