Always Growing: Celebrating 35 Years of Proven

In 1991, you could hold one of our finished projects in your hands. Pages went to the printer, ink dried, and that published piece became a moment frozen in time. New information, better processes, or artistic growth had to wait for the next print.

Today, we don’t have to wait for the next edition. We can adapt and evolve on a moment’s notice.

On October 14, 2026, Proven turned 35. When we look back at how a small New Jersey publishing house became a digital consultancy for mission-driven organizations, the throughline isn’t one industry, technology, or even person. The driving constant is one of our core values: Always Growing.

Then & Now

In 1991, sharing a document meant saving a WordPerfect file on a floppy disk, then passing it to a colleague who inserted it into a heavy beige box that took up half their desk. Now, we can write together, simultaneously, in the same document from continents away. We can even edit it on computers small enough to carry in our pockets.

The world around us changed just as much. Over the years, we weathered Y2K, the Dot Com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, and a global pandemic. We watched the birth of the 24-hour news cycle and social media. In 1991, hardly anyone had a personal email address; now, some parents claim one for their child before their baby is even born. Then, almost no business had a website; today, most people wouldn’t trust a business that doesn’t. We saw the start of Yahoo, Altavista, and Netscape; now, the AI boom is reshaping how people find information all over again.

Each shift in technology has brought forth a new edition of Proven, because our culture is defined by an eagerness to learn, innovate, and evolve.

From Publishing House to Digital Partner

We set up shop as Publishing Resources Inc. (PRI), and the name served us well for many years. Our early partners included the law firm Anderson Kill, the financial printer Bowne, and the investment researcher Value Line. The deliverables were tangible and, once printed, final. As the work shifted online, we shifted with it. In 1997, we built our own website and began offering what we called “The Works,” including print, multimedia, and digital services for our clients.

In 2002, we began our partnership with March of Dimes. More than 20 years later, that relationship has shifted and grown to include PeriStats, a platform that combines 15 years of maternal and infant health data from 12 government agencies into a resource that researchers, policymakers, and families can trust and understand. It has received national recognition, including a feature on Good Morning America, and was named a Webby Honoree for Best Data Visualization in 2024.

A year after March of Dimes, we partnered with MUTTS Comics, Patrick McDonnell’s daily comic strip, which existed only in print at the time. Together, we built an online store from scratch — now carrying more than 11,000 products — and a social following of more than 350,000 people across platforms. Neither project looks like it once did, and that’s the point.

Along the way, our focus shifted away from banking, finance, and insurance toward mission-driven organizations and nonprofits working to improve lives. By 2024, our name was the last thing still rooted in print. We’d been doing digital work almost exclusively for years, so Publishing Resources Inc. became Proven: a name that matched the work and our history of excellence.

People-First Growth

Proven was founded (as PRI) in 1991 by Rich Mansfield with a dream to provide the right words at the right time. It started with printed newsletters and evolved successfully over 18 years of technological advances under his leadership.

Some of our long-tenured team members are the clearest evidence of our Always Growing value. Chintan Parikh joined the team in 2000 as a web developer and grew into the Director of Technology role, inspired by PRI’s vision and values. In 2009, Chintan became CEO, and under his leadership and vision, the company grew from the regional publishing shop in New Jersey into the internationally distributed digital consultancy we are today.

Frank joined our team in 1992 through a client partnership and remains one of our longtime editors and consultants. Elena, now our Art Director, has carried our design standards through each new medium since 1994. Since 2001, Dany has mastered every evolution of search, from the dawn of Google to the “Content is King” era to AI-generated answers. Gaya, who joined PRI in 2003 as a freelancer, is now our Chief Technology Officer. Raman joined us initially in 2005 and later became the Senior Architect on our Engineering team. Matt joined us in 2006, initially working in the MUTTS warehouse, and is now a Senior Project Manager.

Some of their roles didn’t exist in 1991. The team grew into them, and the company grew around them.

Down the Hall to Around the World

In 1991, the whole team shared a New Jersey office. It moved from time to time, from Mount Laurel to Cranbury to Manalapan to Princeton, but the model didn’t. Collaboration happened in person, sometimes around a conference room pool table.

Back then, a close colleague two continents and seven time zones away would have been almost unfathomable. Today, it’s simply how we work. Our team spans the U.S., Paraguay, Georgia, and India. One teammate is a digital nomad, while others split their time across countries. A designer can hand off files at the end of her day to an engineer just starting his. Every new location brings a new perspective to the problems our partners trust us to solve.

The Next Edition

Thirty-five years in, we can’t predict what the next 35 will bring. The tools will change, as they always have. Team members will retire, and others will join the ranks. We’ll add new partners and tackle new projects. We’ll tell new stories and engineer new solutions. No matter what, we’ll keep learning, iterating, and evolving.

When we were founded, a finished project was something you held in your hands. Today, the work keeps growing long after launch, and so do we. Always.