Goodbye re: charity, Shift, Nonprofit Supply Co. and 2017. Hello NextAfter and 2018.

Hello friend, colleague, reader, or internet rand-o,

2017 was a very challenging year for me personally (I won’t get into all of it), but I am hopeful that 2018 will be a great one as there were some big changes in my life and I’d like to share a couple of them with you. So, here goes…

Firstly, I’ve officially joined the team at NextAfter as Vice President of Innovation and Optimization. I don’t even know what I’ll be doing but that title was too badass to pass up so I just said yes :).

But seriously, if you’ve read my emails and posts over the past couple of years, you’ll know NextAfter featured prominently as I align very much with their vision to unleash the most generous generation in the history of the world as well as their approach of rigorous testing to unlock nonprofit innovation through online fundraising optimization.

I recently wrote my first posts for them, 2 Keys for Nonprofit Innovation and 3 Reasons Why Online Fundraising Optimization is Important, which also partly touch on why I believe in their/our work and why I’m so excited to join them.

Part of my role (see, I do know what I’ll be doing) will be working on creating more content — blog posts, webinars, workshops, podcasts, etc. — so if you’re wanting to get my latest thoughts, ideas, and musings in 2018 please consider signing up for email updates from me and NextAfter here.

If you do, you’ll also hear from others (much much smarter than me), get experiments from our research library, invites to free webinars and access to research projects. For example, I’m working on a cool research project focused on online giving in Canada that should be pretty awesome.

Secondly, I’ll no longer be operating re: charity.

I started this blog/site over 5 years ago as a way to vent (overhead!) and process what I was learning (it’s not about you!). Along the way, a few people didn’t hate it (or they only mildly hated it…) and when I started my own company I had a bit more time to invest in writing and content creation.

With my new role at NextAfter, all my time and energy around content and marketing will be used there and I simply will not be able to keep managing and running re: charity.

But good news, I’ve found some amazing people who can! In fact, they’ll be much better than me at regularly producing great, thoughtful content for you. I’ll contribute every now and then but I am excited to be a reader like you and see where the site and content goes.

Thirdly, I’ll be in a board/advisory role only with the agency I founded, Shift.

In the Spring, knowing I was going to be making some life and career changes and also recognizing my short comings as a leader and entrepreneur, Shift was acquired by the great and sharp folks at Benifactor.

Exiting the company you started while trying to grow a team with a partner and doing good work in the Fall and fundraising season is not easy and something I hope to never do again, but clients, the Shift team, and people at Benifactor were full of grace and patience with me as I bungled my way through it.

There’s new leadership and with a new year I’m excited for what’s ahead for Shift as well.

Fourthly, Nonprofit Supply Co. no longer exists as the AdWords clients/work have been acquired by ConnectAd and the website/assets were included in the re: charity acquisition deal.

So…

I hope you’ll sign up for updates from me and NextAfter but I also hope you’ll remain or become a reader of re: charity (I know I will) and think of Shift and ConnectAd for digital fundraising and AdWords services.

Thank you for all your reading, sharing, commenting, not-totally-hating, and support over these past few weeks, months, and years.

I wish you all the best in 2018.

Best,

B

PS. My new work email is brady[@]nextafter.com so please don’t hesitate to contact me there to learn more, just say hey, or for any reason really.

PPS. You can also follow me on Twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn if you’d like to keep in touch that way.