Meet Steven.
Steven and his partner at The Better Fundraising Co., Jim, set out with one goal: To radically improve the fundraising capacity of small- to medium-sized nonprofits.
To hear Steven explain it, his enthusiasm for fundraising is palpable – and contagious. He gets energized helping organizations understand how to do fundraising better so that they can raise more money.
Things to know about Steven: He’s a 2nd-generation fundraiser. He’s a past winner of the Direct Mail Package Of The Year. He’s a self-proclaimed data-driven nerd. His superpower is summarizing things. He is married and has three kids.
Simply put, Steven is a busy guy. And, admittedly, that’s likely an understatement.
ENTER: Gretchen
“We were – and still are – a rapidly growing organization that helps nonprofits across North America raise money – and that created a host of first-world problems,” Steven explains. “But the problems still needed to be solved, so we were looking for a virtual assistant for me.”
Thankfully, Steven immediately recognized how invaluable BELAY’s exhaustively thorough matchmaking process is in helping clients find The One.
“We’re so pleased with Gretchen. She has absolutely been an asset to our business and part of our growth over the past year,” he gushes.
“She is on top of all my stuff: my emails, our project management system, making sure that all of my tasks are clearly defined with deadlines and deliverables – everything.
“She has sort of become my backstop. If I miss an email and it goes ‘below the fold’ in my inbox – down into the abyss – she is going to see it and make sure to bring it to my attention so that I don’t leave a client hanging or miss something that I’ve promised to do. That has been tremendously helpful.”
But Gretchen’s virtues and values don’t stop at Steven’s inbox and calendar. Oh, no. Not our Gretchen.
“She has been so good that she has sort of earned her way out of an internal role into an internal- and external-facing role.
“She’s now talking to clients. She’s now working with our vendors. She’s now doing all sorts of internal marketing processes. She’s worked herself into a linchpin role that is super valuable for our organization – and we could not be happier. It’s hard to imagine how she could be more valuable.”
And without sounding too informercial-y … b-b-but wait, there’s more!
Because at regular intervals, Steven’s BELAY Client Success Consultant, Laura, will check in to see how the relationship with Gretchen is going.
“She says things like, ‘What can we do better? Could you be doing anything differently? A client reminded me of you and is doing two or three things that I want to share with you because I thought they might be helpful for you.’
“This is not bureaucracy; this is Laura adding value to my experience with BELAY and my experience with Gretchen.”
Now we’re blushing.
Because at The Better Fundraising Co., they view fundraising as equal parts science and art. They’ve prided themselves in perfecting both sides for a long time.
And we hope that for clients like Steven and countless others, VAs like Gretchen can further help them perfect and achieve the vision that propels them to climb higher.
“I could not recommend BELAY more. It has made my business more effective and my business life better – which makes my personal life better.”
And at BELAY, that’s all we could ever want.