We would like to welcome Bruce Kratz as our VP of Development!
Bruce joins us to help scale our development team to meet the needs of our growing customer base, especially as GiveSignup becomes more broadly used in the nonprofit community. This is part of our plan for growth that was the basis for taking our Series A funding in September.
Bruce and Bob Bickel worked together at Bluestone Software (acquired by HP) nearly 20 years ago. Bruce will take over a lot of the responsibilities Bob had in managing and growing the development team. “When we decided that we had an enormous opportunity to help customers raise more in the nonprofit space, we knew we had to build more scalability into our organization,” said Bob Bickel, Founder and CEO. “I immediately approached Bruce to join us because he was a good fit for our culture, had deep technology experience and has led the growth of development teams at Bluestone/HP, Princeton Softech (acquired by IBM), and most recently Sparta Systems, where he grew the team from 25 to over 100.”
“I’m very excited to join the team,” stated Bruce. “The fact the company believes in the ‘Art of Technology’ shows with the bright and deep team that is in place. The technology lead they have built in the endurance space is impressive with the breadth and depth of the platform. To help the company grow from helping our customers raise $270 Million per year to over $1 Billion per year is very exciting. Seeing the things we build help so many good causes and good people is a very unique opportunity.”
RunSignup | GiveSignup spent 41% of operating costs on Development in 2020, and plans to increase that to 47% in 2021. As a comparison, Eventbrite spends 21% and Blackbaud spends 22% of operating costs on Development. Technology is the foundation of our company – leading us to be able to spend far less on sales and marketing compared to other companies because customers appreciate the advanced technology at a lower cost.
Bruce and his wife Lynn recently moved from Moorestown, NJ (where the company headquarters is located – he sold his house before Bob contacted him!) to Ocean City, NJ (not too far away). They have two college age children. Bruce is active in his community, as a volunteer firefighter in Moorestown and now in Marmora, NJ, and is into cycling, running, and volleyball.