Fundraising on the Path to Programmatic Print

  • What does data-driven high-speed inkjet printing mean for the future of fundraising? A conversation using Doctors Without Borders as an example.

Doctors Without Borders(MSF) provides emergency medical aid in more than 70 countries. When it comes to direct marketing, MSF consistently relies on high-speed inkjet printing. Jörg Piepenbrink is the driving force behind this development. He discusses this with Gerhard Märtterer. One comes from the print production industry, the other from the software sector. The breakthrough of high-speed inkjet brought them together. What one conceived in theory, the other implements on a large scale in practice. The result is a complete shift in print production toward data-driven high-speed inkjet. On the one hand, this makes traditional direct marketing faster, more cost-effective, and richer in detail and color than with conventional methods. On the other hand, this shift in production methods paves the way for all forms of programmatic printing, extending all the way to fundraising automation in Customer Communication Management (CCM).

  • Jörg Piepenbrink
Direct Marketing Specialist, Doctors Without Borders
Jörg Piepenbrink, a trained typesetter who has completed advanced training as an industrial printing foreman, a certified direct marketing specialist (DDV), a social media manager, and a procurement manager, has served as a direct marketing consultant for Doctors Without Borders e.V. since 2025. Since 2006, he has been the owner of an agency specializing in dialogue marketing and media production management, and from 2014 to 2025, he was a partner at Tap2C GmbH, a company in the field of image recognition. His key responsibilities at Doctors Without Borders include the procurement and handling of all print mailings, as well as advising internal stakeholders and optimizing mailing processes. This includes, among other things, implementing new trends such as the production of mailings using high-speed inkjet printers, the hyper-personalization of print mailings, and high-quality mailing services with various postal providers.
  • Gerhard Märtterer
Spiritual Leader, Programmatic Print Alliance (PPA)
Gerhard Märtterer, who holds a degree in industrial engineering, founded i-clue interactive in 1997 and initially developed websites for financial service providers. In 2003, i-clue launched the first cloud-based software for personalizing digitally printed advertising materials under its own brand, AlphaPicture. The company began its international expansion in 2005. In parallel with the advancements from toner-based digital printing to high-speed inkjet, Märtterer developed concepts, software, and pilot projects that ultimately came together to form what Märtterer called Programmatic Print. Märtterer proved that hyper-personalization in print works even on an industrial scale with print runs in the millions when, from 2013 to 2018, he helped establish a high-performance high-speed digital print shop in northern Germany for a large printing group and utilized it to capacity with Programmatic Print orders. Märtterer shares the deep expertise he has acquired over three decades on an international level through lectures, seminars, and trade journals. In 2022, he founded the Programmatic Print Alliance (PPA) together with the FMP. Since 2025, Märtterer has been publishing the fully personalized magazine PROGRAMMATICA in collaboration with the Amsterdam-based agency it-girls-graphics.

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