Growing up, Scot Chisholm wouldn’t have considered himself the stereotypical CEO of a philanthropy company; however, his mom getting cancer put him on a different path – one that would ultimately define who he would become personally and professionally.
Fresh out of college in 2005, Chisholm took his Engineering degree from UMass Amherst and moved to San Diego for a fresh start. After a short stint working at a local pizzeria, he went on to work as a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton specializing in operations and Lean Six Sigma. Despite his early successes, his compassion for his mother’s illness coupled with his eagerness to build his own empire would inevitably catapult him in another direction.
Still a newcomer to the west coast in 2006, Chisholm and his friends organized a social gathering to raise money for the American Cancer Society with the hope of meeting some new people while supporting a cause close to their hearts. Their initial “StayClassy Pubcrawl,” named after the popular Will Ferrell movie, Anchorman, attracted 200 young people and raised $4,000 for cancer research. One charity event turned into dozens. By the beginning of 2008, Chisholm and his friends had raised more than $100,000 for local San Diego nonprofits, an accomplishment to be proud of, yet still not a viable business model.
LIGHT-BULB MOMENT
While organizing charitable events as a vehicle for young people to get involved was rewarding, it was working alongside nonprofit organizations that gave Chisholm real insight (almost accidentally) into the different shortcomings of the philanthropic fundraising industry.
“For decades, nonprofits have been forced to select from a limited and expensive set of software options to help manage their organization,” said Chisholm. “The nonprofit industry was demanding better solutions, and we felt compelled to help them.”
StayClassy morphed into a web-based software platform and became the missing puzzle piece: a one-stop-shop fundraising suite that helped any type of nonprofit manage and grow their organization by leveraging the power of social media to expand their reach.
“From it’s inception, the goal of our product has been to make the act of donating social - a part of the running Internet conversation about causes that people want to share with their friends and family,” explains Chisholm. “Many organizations register with StayClassy as the first step in building relationships with younger donors who are attracted to this level of social interaction.”
StayClassy clients are able to accept online donations in seconds, manage donors, publish fundraising events, sell tickets, and market themselves online. With no setup fee, small and medium sized nonprofits on a tight budget are able to benefit from StayClassy’s services as well.
“Most nonprofits simply can’t afford the products that are currently in the marketplace,” said Chisholm. “We’ve completely rethought the norm, and built an extremely affordable, yet powerful set of tools from the ground up to transform the way fundraising organizations achieve their mission.”
GAINING MOMENTUM
By the end of 2009, Chisholm was named as one of "San Diego's Top 40 Leaders Under 40" by San Diego Metropolitan Magazine and StayClassy was selected by MIT’s Sloan School as one of the top three startup companies in the U.S at their 12th Annual Venture Capital Conference.
Chisholm & StayClassy launched their new platform at TechCrunch Disrupt in May 2010. Since then, more than 1,400 organizations have registered on their site, attracting 130,000 individuals, donors and supporters, and garnering hundreds of thousands of visitors each month.
Major news outlets like Mashable, the online guide to social media, featured StayClassy in their July “Spark of Genius” series as one of their unique feature startups and then again in September as one of the “Top 10 Ways to Start a Fund for Social Good Online”. Other respected news mediums such as CNN, AOL News, The Huffington Post, and TechCrunch have quoted Chisholm with regard to StayClassy and social entrepreneurism.
In October 2010, StayClassy completed a $1.25 million financing round led by 15 angel investors and is using the funds to accelerate their customer acquisition, expand customer service, and further develop its innovative technologies. The company is also taking steps to add more discovery features to it’s consumer facing website by matching individuals with organizations they may want to support.
The company expects to process more than $20 million in donations from thousands of new customers in 2011.
FULL CIRCLE
Although his mother’s bout with cancer was a horrible ordeal for Chisholm and his family, one of the many, but perhaps the most important, lessons she taught him was how to stare adversity in the face, and prevail.
The traits demonstrated by his mother have not only come to define Chisholm as a person, but have cultivated the friendships he has formed along the way, and the company he took part in founding. Five years later, as a result of that initial inspiration, Chisholm and StayClassy are helping nonprofits across the globe raise millions of dollars for a myriad of causes, including cancer research - all under the same company name, StayClassy.
“When it all boils down, the concept of paying one forward, to me, is what ‘staying classy’ is all about,” said Chisholm. “Is it a strange name for a company like ours? Could be. But then again, nothing we are doing is ordinary.”
About StayClassy
StayClassy (http://www.stayclassy.org) is the easiest and most affordable way for organizations to raise funds and manage donor relationships online. Based in San Diego, CA, the company develops easy-to-use web-based fundraising software for nonprofit organizations. StayClassy launched its new platform in May 2010, and has over 1,400 customers and over 130,000 individual subscribers using its services. It’s free to sign up, making it extremely attractive to small and medium sized organizations on a tight budget. StayClassy is also the host of the Annual CLASSY Awards, a national award show that recognizes outstanding philanthropic achievements throughout the world (http://www.stayclassy.org/classy-awards)
