Meet Community Member: Ann Dempsey
Published
Helping others is just what Ann Dempsey does.
She’s good at it and she’s been doing it for a very long time.
This Indianapolis based mother of two spends what free time she has helping other mothers with everything from exchanging freezer meals to counseling new moms on breastfeeding. She also has a bit of a green thumb; she tends to a small community garden.
As busy as she is at home, her focus is also on a community 2,661 miles to her south.
Ann works with the Cooperative for Education. It’s a non-profit that helps Guatemalan school children break the cycle of poverty.
Before we focus on that, let’s focus on what drove Ann to dedicate her life to helping others.
At Xavier University, Ann studied Computer Science. While in college, she took an internship doing computer software testing at a large corporation. It was during that time that she realized she needed to be a part of something smaller and more meaningful. She wanted to live the dream she had since she was a child: she wanted to help people.
After college, she volunteered with the Jesuit Volunteer Corp. She spent a year in Missoula, Montana working at a YWCA battered women and children’s shelter. There she was able to help women in domestic violence situations and worked with rape survivors to get them the help they needed.
Ann took some time away from the emotional toll of helping battered women and focused her energy on working on the systems and processes to make things easier for the shelter.
Ann started by taking a big box of paper files and putting that information into a spreadsheet – a rough database, if you will. That cut research time from hours to minutes. It became a source of stress relief for her. That’s how she fell into the administrative side of things. It was an easy fit – helping others by helping the organization she volunteered for.
Her career took off from there – she became the woman that took her organizations into the 20th century.
That’s where she is today. Ann is trying to help Guatemalan schoolchildren have the skills they need to succeed in a modern world.
Tell us about your organization? “Cooperative for Education’s mission is to help Guatemalan school children break the cycle of poverty through education. We are going in our 20th year. It was started by two brothers: Jeff and Joe Berninger. Jeff decided to take a year off his corporate job and volunteer somewhere else in the world – he wanted to teach English to students. He thought, ‘How hard could this be? I’ll just teach what’s in the textbook.’ He got to class and asked the students where the books were. But there were no books.”
“Rather than try and come up with one-time donation of textbooks, he wanted to set up something that would last. He established a revolving fund; students would pay a small fee to rent textbooks that had been donated. After 5-7 years, there’d be enough funds to replace the textbooks. What started with one school has turned into 171 schools throughout Guatemala. It’s really awesome because it is a self-sustaining program. In 2000, we started a computer lab division which runs the same way. Computer skills are still necessary and in demand for these students. Ultimately these skills land them good jobs which allows them to break the cycle of poverty. We have also expanded to serve younger children with reading programs and provide scholarships to keep kids from dropping out of school due to economic limitations.”
What is your role at your organization? “I am the Associate Development Director. A big part of my job for the last seven years has been managing our grants program, working with our foundations, and managing our grant writers to help create proposals for funding. We have a portfolio of about 30 foundations in a given year. We create reports showing the foundation what we did with their investment in our programs. We are making sure we are proving our results and illustrating the numbers with stories, so they can understand the true impact of their generosity.”
“I’ve been in charge of a lot of marketing initiatives for our organization, but for the past year I’ve been focusing a lot on strategic planning in the fundraising division. Since I have a background in technology, I’m figuring out new technology solutions to make our organization better with more efficient data.”
How does eTapestry fit into that? “We needed a new database. I was put in charge of the project. I had to figure out which product met our needs. Switching to eTap was a big project. For us, it was vital that we chose a product that was web-based. It makes sharing easier with our remote employees.”
“eTap is allowing us to keep better records and notes. Our data is so much better than it ever was before. We’ve got really solid, strict rules about what needs to go in, so when we do pull the data out it is in good shape.”
“One of the reasons we picked eTap over the other products is because it allows us to keep information about all of the students we sponsor in the database - next to our donor information. We needed good access to all the students that we sponsor. Now I can log in and tell you about a student, what grade they are in, and who sponsors them.”
“We also like the integration. We have an eCommerce page and we use Blackbaud Merchant Services. Just recently we started using mobile pay. We will use mobile pay in at our big fundraising event on November 14– the Fall Fiesta at Great American Ball Park in downtown Cincinnati. We are using it for check-outs and we are excited!”
What advice do you have to people new to eTapestry? “I think just with any new technology you have to get in and play with it a bit – make small changes and then try and write queries and reports to see how that data is pulled. Be curious and make it a challenge to figure out new ways of doing things. “
What’s the best part of your job? “I love my job because it is an amazing mission with really talented people. Everyone is really hard working, smart, and passionate. Our donors are so generous. It almost skews your perception of humanity. When I see troll-like behavior on the internet, I just can’t comprehend it because everyone I’m with is so positive. I’m also inspired by the kids. It means so much to them to have someone care enough to say their education is worth supporting. It might be just a book or access to a computer, but the fact that we are there at all is living proof that they are worth the investment. It’s very powerful to the kids and their families and carries them just as far as the educational tools we give them.”
If you’d like to read more about Ann’s organization, Cooperative for Education you can visit their website. They also have volunteer trips to Guatemala every February and August if you are looking for a fun trip that is also life-changing and inspirational.
Thanks to Ann and the Cooperative for Education for being an eTapestry customer and for being this month’s Community Member spotlight!
She’s good at it and she’s been doing it for a very long time.
This Indianapolis based mother of two spends what free time she has helping other mothers with everything from exchanging freezer meals to counseling new moms on breastfeeding. She also has a bit of a green thumb; she tends to a small community garden.
As busy as she is at home, her focus is also on a community 2,661 miles to her south.
Ann works with the Cooperative for Education. It’s a non-profit that helps Guatemalan school children break the cycle of poverty.
Before we focus on that, let’s focus on what drove Ann to dedicate her life to helping others.
At Xavier University, Ann studied Computer Science. While in college, she took an internship doing computer software testing at a large corporation. It was during that time that she realized she needed to be a part of something smaller and more meaningful. She wanted to live the dream she had since she was a child: she wanted to help people.
After college, she volunteered with the Jesuit Volunteer Corp. She spent a year in Missoula, Montana working at a YWCA battered women and children’s shelter. There she was able to help women in domestic violence situations and worked with rape survivors to get them the help they needed.
Ann took some time away from the emotional toll of helping battered women and focused her energy on working on the systems and processes to make things easier for the shelter.
Ann started by taking a big box of paper files and putting that information into a spreadsheet – a rough database, if you will. That cut research time from hours to minutes. It became a source of stress relief for her. That’s how she fell into the administrative side of things. It was an easy fit – helping others by helping the organization she volunteered for.
Her career took off from there – she became the woman that took her organizations into the 20th century.
That’s where she is today. Ann is trying to help Guatemalan schoolchildren have the skills they need to succeed in a modern world.
Tell us about your organization? “Cooperative for Education’s mission is to help Guatemalan school children break the cycle of poverty through education. We are going in our 20th year. It was started by two brothers: Jeff and Joe Berninger. Jeff decided to take a year off his corporate job and volunteer somewhere else in the world – he wanted to teach English to students. He thought, ‘How hard could this be? I’ll just teach what’s in the textbook.’ He got to class and asked the students where the books were. But there were no books.”
“Rather than try and come up with one-time donation of textbooks, he wanted to set up something that would last. He established a revolving fund; students would pay a small fee to rent textbooks that had been donated. After 5-7 years, there’d be enough funds to replace the textbooks. What started with one school has turned into 171 schools throughout Guatemala. It’s really awesome because it is a self-sustaining program. In 2000, we started a computer lab division which runs the same way. Computer skills are still necessary and in demand for these students. Ultimately these skills land them good jobs which allows them to break the cycle of poverty. We have also expanded to serve younger children with reading programs and provide scholarships to keep kids from dropping out of school due to economic limitations.”
What is your role at your organization? “I am the Associate Development Director. A big part of my job for the last seven years has been managing our grants program, working with our foundations, and managing our grant writers to help create proposals for funding. We have a portfolio of about 30 foundations in a given year. We create reports showing the foundation what we did with their investment in our programs. We are making sure we are proving our results and illustrating the numbers with stories, so they can understand the true impact of their generosity.”
“I’ve been in charge of a lot of marketing initiatives for our organization, but for the past year I’ve been focusing a lot on strategic planning in the fundraising division. Since I have a background in technology, I’m figuring out new technology solutions to make our organization better with more efficient data.”
How does eTapestry fit into that? “We needed a new database. I was put in charge of the project. I had to figure out which product met our needs. Switching to eTap was a big project. For us, it was vital that we chose a product that was web-based. It makes sharing easier with our remote employees.”
“eTap is allowing us to keep better records and notes. Our data is so much better than it ever was before. We’ve got really solid, strict rules about what needs to go in, so when we do pull the data out it is in good shape.”
“One of the reasons we picked eTap over the other products is because it allows us to keep information about all of the students we sponsor in the database - next to our donor information. We needed good access to all the students that we sponsor. Now I can log in and tell you about a student, what grade they are in, and who sponsors them.”
“We also like the integration. We have an eCommerce page and we use Blackbaud Merchant Services. Just recently we started using mobile pay. We will use mobile pay in at our big fundraising event on November 14– the Fall Fiesta at Great American Ball Park in downtown Cincinnati. We are using it for check-outs and we are excited!”
What advice do you have to people new to eTapestry? “I think just with any new technology you have to get in and play with it a bit – make small changes and then try and write queries and reports to see how that data is pulled. Be curious and make it a challenge to figure out new ways of doing things. “
What’s the best part of your job? “I love my job because it is an amazing mission with really talented people. Everyone is really hard working, smart, and passionate. Our donors are so generous. It almost skews your perception of humanity. When I see troll-like behavior on the internet, I just can’t comprehend it because everyone I’m with is so positive. I’m also inspired by the kids. It means so much to them to have someone care enough to say their education is worth supporting. It might be just a book or access to a computer, but the fact that we are there at all is living proof that they are worth the investment. It’s very powerful to the kids and their families and carries them just as far as the educational tools we give them.”
If you’d like to read more about Ann’s organization, Cooperative for Education you can visit their website. They also have volunteer trips to Guatemala every February and August if you are looking for a fun trip that is also life-changing and inspirational.
Thanks to Ann and the Cooperative for Education for being an eTapestry customer and for being this month’s Community Member spotlight!
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Blackbaud eTapestry® Blog
09/22/2015 10:56am EDT
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