The DonorTrends Team

A gifted team and great teamwork is the way DonorTrends creates the breakthrough products and services that define our success for those we serve.

Each member of the DonorTrends team has distinguished their individual careers through skill, dedication, innovation and a demonstrated willingness to challenge the conventional to achieve superior results.

Click on a team member below for more information.  The team is sorted by first name.

Caity Craver
Group Director
Marketing and Communications

David Lawson
President
Screening & Analytics

Caity Craver
Group Director,  Marketing and Communications

Over the last decade Caity has focused her career on building loyal and engaged donor files in partnership with the most respected brands in the social sector.

From the frontlines of fundraising she knows all too well about the challenges facing the nonprofit community and is impassioned about solving them.  Caity is an advocate for every development officer and fundraising consultant bringing relentless drive to finding answers and actionable solutions that have a proven impact on bottom-line. She champions the DonorTrends brand – a brand dedicated to building an affordable toolset that takes acquisition, retention, upgrade and reactivation issues head-on.

After university Caity studied the impact of the introduction of the Euro at HEC Paris, France. Caity has been mentored by the best in the business and is grateful to each for their time, insight, guidance, and patience.  She credits the success in her career to these incredible individuals.

When she’s not kicking the tires with the DonorTrends’ team, Caity is watching the Redskins (hopefully win) and blindly working her way through coaching 3 year old soccer with her husband and two sons in Charlotte, North Carolina. Note:  if anyone has advice on coaching 3 year old soccer, it would be gratefully accepted and much appreciated.  Email Caity.

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David M. Lawson
President, Screening & Analytics

David brings more than 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur focused on the information technology needs of the philanthropic community.

In 1997, David founded Prospect Information Network (P!N) to provide prospect identification services and software to fundraisers.  P!N was acquired by Kintera in 2004 where he served as a Senior Vice President until 2008. 

In the 1980s he founded The Information Prospector, a company that provided in-depth profiles of philanthropists.  In 1988 he introduced Securities Prospector, the first asset screening service for fundraisers. From 1993-97 David was a senior consultant with CDA/Investnet (now part of Thomson Financial), where he created their Real Estate MATCH product and designed the first dedicated wealth screening software application, FACT$Viewer.

Most recently David co-founded WorkingPhilanthropy.com, a company providing eLearning experiences for fundraising professionals. David is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has authored numerous articles for publications such as The Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Nonprofit Times, CASE Currents, and APRA Connections.

He is a contributing author to Major Donors: Finding Big Gifts in Your Database and Online and People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities. David is a Member of APRA, AASP, a CASE Steuben Apple Award and an APRA Distinguished Service Award recipient, and is the Co-founder of The WOW Institute, a training organization for fundraisers and philanthropists. You can follow David on Twitter at @Lawson_David.  And yes, he is married to Lori and lives in Tallahassee with Izzy and Jake.

What brought me to DonorTrends is the opportunity to work with innovators who share my belief, that we can only be successful if the organization we serve are successful as well. Our success is inextricably tied to each and every client's success.

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Don Austin
Senior Analytics and Modeling Consultant

As Director of Analytics for Rapp-Collins Worldwide and as Manager of Direct Response for the American Heart Association, Don brings to DonorTrends more than 20 years’ experience in both the commercial and non-profit worlds. His analytics focus is on maximizing net revenue through database analysis, segmentation, long-term value calculation, advanced acquisition response analysis and predictive modeling.

With a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University and formerly a professor at Southern Methodist University Don knows how to  bring data to life with a clarity that assures its effective use in advancing fundraising goals and strategic plans.

Don’s clients have included National Easter Seals Society, the American Heart Association, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, Texas Children’s Hospital, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Boy’s Town, North Shore Animal League, and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

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Fraser Green
Senior Consultant

Since 1996, Fraser Green has been a Principal at Canada’s FLA Group – a fundraising consulting firm specializing in direct response, market research and legacy gift marketing. Fraser is the co-author of ‘Iceberg Philanthropy’, has published in dozens of fundraising journals and has spoken at fundraising conferences in the USA, Canada and Europe.

Fraser’s first career was in social democratic politics, where he was an organizer, strategist and campaign manager in more than 60 local, provincial and national campaigns. From 1992  to 1996, Fraser was CEO of the New Democratic Party of Canada.

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Greg Schneiders
Founding Partner

Greg is a DonorTrends Partner as well as Founder and CEO of Prime Group, Donor Trends’ public opinion and market research affiliate.   Greg has more than thirty years experience in national politics, public affairs, strategic communications, and research. 

He served in the White House as Deputy Assistant for Communications to President Jimmy Carter, Communications Director of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, and Press Secretary and Director of Communications for Senator and presidential candidate John Glenn before leaving government service to start his business. 

Among the dozens of government, non-profit, and corporate clients Greg has served are: the U.S. Departments of State and Education, Pfizer, United Health Group, UPS,  GE, Major League Baseball, The U.S. Golf Association, The Smithsonian Institution, Standard & Poor’s, Educational Testing Service, The Washington Post, and the March of Dimes.  

Greg is a graduate of Georgetown University and has taught political communications at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and the University of Pennsylvania. He is a frequent public speaker on politics and communications and has contributed commentary and columns to The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal among many other publications.  Greg lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Marie.  They have two sons.

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James Marcus
Advisor, Business and Corporate Strategy and Development

James is currently working with Donor Trends as its Senior Advisor for Business Strategy and Development.  Previously, James was the founder and CEO of Integrated Fundraising & Marketing Solutions, Inc., which under his leadership grew to become the nation’s largest telefundraising firm serving the progressive NGO and political markets.

Prior to that, James held various positions in corporate finance (Bank of Montreal) and public accounting (Ernst & Young) and has many years experience formulating and implementing strategy and doing operational turnaround work on behalf of venture and private equity firms.

James has been published, quoted and featured on local, national and international news and media outlets including CNN, Bloomberg TV, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Forbes, Fortune, Red Herring and Financial Times.  James holds a B.S. in Accounting and Entrepreneurship from the University of Connecticut, graduating summa cum laude, and a Masters of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. 

James manages a small investment fund, serves on the boards of several private companies and resides just outside New York City with his wife and 3 daughters.

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Jim Burton
Senior Data Warehousing and Analytics Consultant

Jim decades of pioneering experience is just one of the reasons The Data Center has become a success in the direct mail non-profit world. His programming experience includes:

    * Software development for direct mail systems and database management with analytical support beginning in 1965.
    * The development of accounting systems for local banks in 1962,
    * Supporting the Polaris Missile System by designing trajectory simulation systems and entry/re-entry simulation programs starting in 1965,
    * Development of Statistical Financial Reports for Naval Ships Systems Command and,
    * Development of Peace Corp Payroll and Personnel Systems.

Jim has since formed several software design companies, which provide software development, implementation and end product use for direct mail and other related software systems. Under Jim's direction, these firms developed and implemented subscription fulfillment and membership systems for non-profit associations and political clients.

Through the years, Jim refined these systems to include fundraising, information retrieval, volunteer utilization, statistical analysis, voter identification and persuasion, poll analysis and PC interfacing. Expansions of these firms led to divisions in: copy development and package design, printing, mailing and end product evaluation.

In 1989 he focused those thirty years of technical experience into the design and development of MASTERLINK. It is Jim's leadership in combining legacy systems with client-server enterprise wide PC systems that is moving The Data Center into the 21st century.

An avid horse enthusiast, Jim has played polo since 1998, and currently keeps 34 polo ponies in Warrenton, Virginia. Other hobbies have led to building companies that provide jet air charter and helicopter services. Jim is an airline transport rated pilot with commercial helicopter and jet type ratings.

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Joe comes to DonorTrends after many years spent in sales management for both Fortune 500 organizations and start-ups alike, primarily in the telecom and business services sectors. He has managed teams responsible for accounts such as IBM, AT&T, United HealthGroup, NBC Universal, and many others, and he takes great pride in having been mentored by some truly gifted and dedicated professionals in his career.
 
In his role at DonorTrends, Joe is responsible for the collective sales efforts of the organization, involved in product positioning and messaging, and drives the development of new and recurring revenue streams. Joe studied Business and English Literature at the University of Connecticut and presently lives in the Tampa, FL area with his wife and 2 boys. He enjoys playing golf, watching baseball with his sons, and spending time with his family.
 
When asked what attracted him to DonorTrends, Joe responded by saying that "the opportunity to bring new and better solutions to the fundraising space was compelling, especially at a time when many organizations are challenged by the economy and a shrinking donor community."

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Kevin comes to DonorTrends as a market research and data modeling practitioner with a strong entrepreneurial and corporate track record of growing businesses and managing people while delivering strategic focus and execution.  He has specific and deep experience in customer loyalty and product development of SaaS platforms for survey research, analytics and customer experience management working with large, B2C companies.  This commercial knowledge combined with past experience in the non-profit space as a partner in a boutique research and branding consultancy make him a natural fit for DonorTrends.

A graduate of the University of Virginia with majors in Economics and Sociology, Kevin also holds a Master's in Survey Methodology from the University of Maryland/University of Michigan Joint Program in Survey Methodology.

Kevin and his wife, Michelle, live in Alexandria with their recently born daughter Leighton and three other children, Trey, Finn and Keeley.

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Lori Hood Lawson
Group Director, Fundraising Intelligence Solutions

Lori utilizes her years of  institutional development research experience to help organizations turn data into actionable intelligence. Earlier this year she co-founded  WorkingPhilanthropy.com to help keep the nonprofit sector current in the latest issues and trends.

Before joining DonorTrends Lori served as Director of Strategic Solutions for Kintera P!N, where she not only managed a team serving more than 300 nonprofit organizations in identification of prospective donors via wealth screening but also helped bring to market P!N’s desktop product as a web-based solution.

Before joining P!N Lori enjoyed the role of  Associate Director of Research for The Florida State University Foundation, where she received the Administrator of the Year Award and served on the New Employee Orientation Committee and The Committee for Acknowledgement and Recognition of Employee Excellence.

Lori is a member of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement International (APRA) and has served on the board of the Florida chapter of APRA, most recently as President and Director-At-Large. She holds an MS from The Florida State University School of Information and a BA from Emory University. 

She is a voracious reader, a frequent author of articles and blogs, and a speaker at industry conferences. You may follow her on Twitter @workinglori. And, yes, she is married to David, and lives in Tallahassee with her children Izzy and Jake, and one very old and very crazy cat, Zoey.

I joined DonorTrends because of this goal - providing actionable data to nonprofit organizations, data which focuses on giving and the person behind the money, which moves beyond the singular focus on capacity.

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Robert Sands
Senior Account Executive
Enterprise

Robert “Bob” Sands joins DonorTrends after heading a New Business Development group at Care2, who offers efficient advertising methods for nonprofits to grow their capacity for online and multi-channel outreach, advocacy and fundraising.  Prior to joining Care2, Sands worked in the Internet Solutions group at software-as-a-service provider Blackbaud, Inc., where he introduced nonprofits to online fundraising and development solutions. Sands previously served as Director of Development and Alumni Relations at the Hyde School in Connecticut, where he led annual fund, capital and restricted campaigns, planned giving and alumni relations. As an entrepreneur and investor, Bob founded and led Sandcastle Technologies, a Kansas City-based business incubator that helped startup businesses develop sales, marketing, IT and operations, where he also served as CEO of Vicina.com, a provider of online services to neighborhood home associations.  He also worked for many years in the High Tech sector, first as Midwest sales director for Cisco Systems, where he managed a 100-person sales force and engineering team for enterprise clients. Bob next served as vice president of worldwide sales for sales force knowledge management company Participate Systems (now Outstart), and as regional sales manager for systems and security management software company NetIQ Corporation.  Bob is a graduate of Villanova University.

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Roger Craver
Founder

Roger is the Editor -in-Chief of The Agitator, DonorTrends’ daily information service on fundraising and communications.  He is also the founder of Craver, Mathews, Smith & Company where he served as Chair for 34 years.

A pioneer in direct mail in the 1970s…telemarketing in the early ‘80s…online political information systems in the late ’80…and the internet in the mid-90s, Roger is now at it again breaking ground in the filed interactive fundraising intelligence and trend analysis.

A university development director who defected early in his career to the cause of citizen advocacy, Roger has been a fundraiser for 40 years and has helped build some of the household names in social justice and citizens movements — The American Civil Liberties Union, Greenpeace, Habitat for Humanity, Common Cause, the National Organization for Women, and Amnesty International, U.S.

Active in both North America and Europe, he serves as Chair of Delphi Fundraising and Membership Development in the Netherlands.  Among the international NGOs he has counseled are Greenpeace International and World Wildlife Fund.

A frequent speaker and author on fundraising topics Roger holds an A.B. summa cum laude from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and a J.D. summa cum laude from The National Law Center of George Washington University.

Why DonorTrends? At this stage in my career I want to do my part to insure that every organization, regardless of size and budget, can access the best and most innovative solutions quickly,and simply. And, at affordable prices.

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Ryann Miller
Managing Director

Ryann oversees the daily operations and product development of DonorTrends and is charged with assuring our clients receive the best service and value in the fundraising intelligence market.

A specialist in online and integrated fundraising and campaigning with a special emphasis on online media and social networks, she understands the importance of on-time and on-budget delivery of quality work.

Ryann has served as a consultant to Greenpeace International, The International Campaign for Tibet, Amnesty International and a variety of humanitarian, relief, environmental, and health based organizations. Previously a Senior Fundraising Consultant with HJC New Media, Ryann thrives on assisting nonprofits leverage the internet as one of the increasingly important instruments in the nonprofit fundraising, advocacy and marketing toolkit.

Co-author of “The Web of Integration: Fully Integrated Fundraising Campaigns” and a teacher and trainer at numerous fundraising conferences, Ryann holds a B.A. from the University of Toronto and an M.A. from Queen's University. She's an avid traveller, keen reader, and near-obsessive listener of music. Ryann joined DonorTrends because DonorTrends' mission to help nonprofits raise more money through innovative and cutting edge research is just the kind of thing she loves doing. 

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Stephanie brings over 15 years of experience and passion for the nonprofit industry to Donor Trends.   For the past four years, as a senior account executive at Kintera, now Blackbaud , she has worked closely with a variety of large and small nonprofits both in data analytics and online engagement strategies.

Stephanie also served as APRA's Executive Director for almost 10 years.  During her tenure with APRA, she was able to contribute significantly to the organization's growth. 

Stephanie is a founding member, and former board member of the Association of Advancement Services Professionals, an active member of the Association Forum of Chicagoland, and frequent volunteer in her children's schools and activities. 

She is based in Chicago, is a White Sox and Blackhawks fan, and promises not to refer to you as "da" anything!

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Tom Belford
Chief Agitator

In his sporadically productive moments, Tom edits The Agitator, our daily post that attempts to provoke and inspire fundraising and communications professionals in the nonprofit sector. He also plays a key role in helping DonorTrends develop content and tools, and make sense of the research we generate.

Tom’s checkered past includes directing issue development and state lobbying at Common Cause in its founding years; service in the Carter White House; building Ted Turner’s first philanthropic organization; doing heaps of consulting for nonprofits through Vanguard Communications and Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co.; conceiving marketing programs at Focalpoint for corporate clients like Time Warner Cable, Maker’s Mark bourbon and Discovery Communications; and running marketing for Environmental Defense Fund.

For inspiration Tom turns to Dilbert, The Simpsons, The Onion, and The Colbert Report. He reads heavily on topics such as ancient history, people who challenge the sea, animal husbandry and how the brain works. Go figure!

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Wen-Tsing Choi
Consulting Analyst

Wen-Tsing is a Senior Analyst with Prime Group, where he oversees all primary research activities for the company, transforming research into useful strategic counsel for clients. He has ten years of experience in quantitative and qualitative market research and consulting, including extensive experience in online research.

Prior to joining Prime Group Wen-Tsing worked at Knowledge Networks, where he managed online polling projects for CBS News, including the "public pulse" projects (nationwide online dial tests) that featured prominently on the CBS Evening News throughout the 2000 general election.

Wen-Tsing is a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers (AAPOR). He received his master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University, and his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Davis.

He lives with his wife and two children in Bethesda, Maryland.

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