Meet Angela Bertrand! 3607

Meet Angela Bertrand!

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Meet (and friend!) Angela Bertrand, a Raiser's Edge, Online Express, RENXT, and Blackbaud Merchant Services user, with Solid Ground.

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Meet Angela Bertrand!

This week's member spotlight shines on Raiser's Edge, Online Express, RENXT, and Blackbaud Merchant Services user, Angela Bertrand, with Solid Ground.

Angela Bertrand's Community Profile

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Tell us about your family (fur babies count!) "My partner and I live in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle with our staffordshire terrier, Whisper! We've had her for 5 years and have lived in Ballard for 4. We love being walking distance to the year-round farmers market, dozens of delicious restaurants, a great beach, and public transit to take us to work and downtown Seattle!"

Where do you live? "Seattle, Washington."

What do you like to do for fun? "For fun I love to play boardgames with friends (we like Code Names, Suburbia, Matchi Koro, and Flashpoint right now.) I also read a lot and have a goal of reading 52 books a year. This year I'm on book 19 - you can find me on goodreads if you need some book reccomendations! Finally, I train for distance swims and triathalons. I've done 4 sprint triathlons (.5 mi swim/12 mi bike/3 mi run) and 1 olympic triathlon (1 mi swim/25 mi bike/6 mi swim) and plan to do 2 more sprint distances this year. I love swimming and my longest swim to date was 3 miles- in Lake Washington from the I90 floating bridge to the SR520 floating bridge!"

What’s a life achievement you are particularly proud of? "I'm proud of the progress I've made in my career! I've learned to speak up and advocate for myself and as a result I've been given some amazing projects. I started in the non-profit world in 2013 never having even heard of Raiser's Edge and taught myself the ins-and-outs of it in 6 months. Since then I've written 3 policy and procedure manuals, moved to a larger organization, created several custom reports and lead a database conversion project in a new department. I'm now part time working on transitioning our organization to using one centralized database to track our program participant data (instead of 20 solo databases with varying degrees of functionality) and have already completed an organization wide data dictionary."

What’s one memory that always makes you smile? "I just got back from a vacation in Hawaii (our first one!) so right now that's what I'm thinking of. I would say thinking back to the first day we didn't get rained on and we went to Punalu Black Sand Beach and it was gorgeous and we saw sea turtles. We'd had 3 days of straight downpour (not what we pictured for our Hawaiian vacation) and that was a great end to the rain."

What is one interesting fact about yourself most people don't know? "In college I spent a semester studying abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. We had a 3-week travel break and I spent the second week of it backpacking alone through Europe. I went to London, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Berlin. BUT I did all of this without a cell phone, alarm clock, or working computer - so no way of contacting anyone in case of an emergency. I had a great time but in retrospect I should have planned just a little bit better."

Tell us about your organization "I work at Solid Ground - a multi-service agency in Seattle. We work passionately to end poverty and build a more equtable community. Our services support people experiencing poverty by helping them achieve stability and expand their skills to realize their dreams. In addition to proving immediate services, we organize people, especially those most impacted by poverty, to participate in advocacy that makes our region more just for all."

What’s a typical day like for you? "No two days are ever the same! But if I had to describe a typical day, I would say I bike to work by 8am, get myself some tea and review my planner to pick out the top three to five things I need to get done and get to work! Today that's preparing our 2016 community report list of individual donors, completing a training module on developing skills and processes to ensure that the data we collect as an agency is useful and used in pursuit of impact."

What’s the best part of your job? "The best part of my job is talking to the people who are entering data into the databases to discover how I can make their jobs easier, provide better tools, or build them a report that actually matches how they measure success."
What advice would you give someone starting out in the non-profit field? "Talk to people! Eveyone is here because we care about the work of non-profits and everyone has a valuable perspective - from community members and program participants to direct line staff and management. I would also recommend reading up on the non-profit industrial complex and reading about how non-profits can perpetuate the problems they're trying to solve so you can have conversations about ways to break that cycle."

What do you love about the Blackbaud Community? "I love that I can come here and get great advice quickly! Everyone here is so helpful - it's the first place I go when I come against a question I don't know the answer to or I find two solutions and I need help figuring out which is better."
If you could have a theme song, what would it be? ".... that's a tough one! Maybe 'Try Everything' by Shakira?"
News ARCHIVED | Member Spotlight 06/14/2017 11:40am EDT

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2 Comments
Love that you taught yourself RE... me too! Congratulations on all your success! 
Great theme song, great advice and really, great member spotlight Angela!

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