Please welcome our latest Be Our Guest participant - Stacey Monk (LinkedIn). Stacey is the CEO & Founder of Epic Change, which began in 2008. Her previous work includes owning a boutique consulting firm in San Francisco, working in IT strategy at Genentech, working in welfare reform for Santa Clara County, California, consulting for Deloitte and as an arts administrator at a university theatre in Texas. Stacey has her B.A. in philosophy from Catholic University in D.C. and her M.A. in performing arts management from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School of Public Policy & Management. Stacey's work with Epic Change has been recognized as one of the best social media fundraising efforts. Their projects have included Tweetsgiving, To Mama With Love & Epic Thanks. I am honored to have her take part in the blog - Many thanks Stacey!
What is the biggest challenge your fundraising efforts currently face?
Creating a sustainable, predictable, stable income source. We also have not had any focus at all on grant writing, so we could probably stand to develop a strategy in that regard.
What are you doing to overcome these challenges?
It's one of our top priorities for 2011. We plan to involve our community and design engaging opportunities to transform one-time donors into regular supporters.
What is the most successful change/program implementation you have made in your current role?
Our investments in Tanzania have been very successful, having built one of the top-performing primary schools in Arusha (the picture above is Stacey with students in Arusha). From a fundraising standpoint, I think our To Mama With Love project was particularly successful. (See blog post on To Mama here)
Where do you see social media's best application for fundraising?
It's constantly evolving. I don't think there are great applications for fundraising, per se. Many tools are great for building communities that eventually generate funds for your cause. Tools and platforms that ask people to invest more than money - to invest their hearts (in the form of personal content, stories & emotion) - will, in my opinion, ultimately have the greatest impact.
What book/blog/twitter feed would you suggest fundraisers pay attention to in order to further develop their skills?
What question would you find most useful for the readers to answer?
We've primarily been successfully funded through grassroots contributions. What ideas do you have to transform one-time contributors into regular supports? If I get two questions (you do, Stacey!), I'd also ask what the best tools are out there for grant research - where's the best place to start? (Stacey - check out @PamelaGrow)
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