Meet Amy Dana!

Published

Meet Amy Dana, a Raiser's Edge, TeamRaiser, and Blackbaud Merchant Services user with Grand View University. She's also a top points earner in Community and a huge fan of anything Halloween!


Meet Amy Dana! This week's Community Corner spotlight shines on Raiser's Edge, TeamRaiser, and BBMS user, Amy Dana with Grand View University. Amy Dana's Community Profile> Read Amy's Blog: "How to bbcon"
About Amy: Tell us about your family (fur babies count!) "Married for 14 years with a 4-year-old die-hard Darth Vader fan. We adopted two cats last year, Jonesy (after the cat in "Alien) and Larry (because that was already his name and it oddly works for him). Our favorite holiday is Halloween." Where do you live? "Des Moines, Iowa." What do you like to do for fun? "The three of us are into Star Wars, superheroes, and science. Reading is big, but I'm not sure if my son wants more stories because he loves literacy or he just doesn't want to go to bed."
	What’s a life achievement you are particularly proud of? "I've made it to a penhouse corner office. Ok, it's just an office on the top floor which happens to be in the corner, but it's a happy place." What’s one memory that always makes you smile? "Telling my husband we were pregnant after four years of trying. He had to work that Saturday and I took the test in the morning. I had to wait ALL DAY to tell him and it was the hardest thing I ever did." Tell us about your organization: "Grand View is a small liberal-arts university in Des Moines. We've been around since 1896, founded by Danish Lutheran immigrants with a focus on the Danish Folk School principal of lifelong learning. We've been an academy, a seminary, a two-year school, a four-year college, and in 2008, we became a university. Our mission is to engage, equip, and empower students to fulfull their individual potential and serve society."
What’s a typical day like for you? "Wake up after 5 snoozes, make coffee and then forget about it until it's cold, convince a pre-schooler that you have to wear clean underwear every day, make Raiser's Edge dance for me in order to make my team look good, then relax watching "Iron Giant" for the 5,000,000th time." What’s the best part of your job? "I love to see the students come in as hesitant first years and graduate as confident adults. We have a lot of underserved students and knowing that Grand View is a place where everyone is welcome is an awesome feeling."
	What advice would you give someone starting out in the non-profit field? "You cannot change the world overnight. In fact, it might seem that you're not changing the world at all. Most of us go into non-profits thinking we are going to save the world in one fell swoop. It may feel that your thank you letters or database clean-up aren't serving the greater good, but as time goes on you see that all the small things you do make a larger impact. You may not have saved all the starfish, but if you save one every day, that's a good life." What do you love about the Blackbaud Community? "I love the different perspectives everyone brings to the table. RE can do so many different things and people get really creative. I also love that so many people have a sense of humor about what we do."

What is one interesting fact about yourself most people don't know? "I met my husband through an online dating service."