As ROI Solutions completes the celebration of its 25th anniversary, I’ve been encouraged to remember where I was at age 25. I was about to embark on a major life and career change that would put me on a new path. It was scary, but for a long time, something inside me had been speaking up to urge that I consider a change. I was finally ready to listen.
During the summer of 1998, I decided I was no longer interested in pursuing a career in scientific research. Instead, I wanted to work for LGBTQ rights. It was my passion. It was also where most of my free time was going anyway, so I decided to make it my career.
That’s just what I did, and on Valentine’s Day in 1999, I moved to the greater Washington, D.C. area. I had no job yet and needed to find a place to live. After a few months of persistent applications, I was hired by the Human Rights Campaign as a summer pride intern.
My job was to attend Pride Festivals around the country, set up our booths, and sign people up to become members of HRC.
Now, no one has ever accused me of being shy, but doing full-time work and asking people to become members of an organization is a crash course in many things. It’s a quick way to learn how to briefly describe the mission of an organization. It’s also a quick way to learn to explain how people’s support will power the mission and why they should donate $35 today to become a member.
Just as important as describing the mission, though, was the ability to listen. People’s stories are unique, meaning their reasons for wanting to support an organization like HRC are also unique. I listened to people who:
- Had been fired from their jobs for being LGBTQ.
- Endured violence and hate crimes.
- Desperately wanted and needed the legal protections of marriage for their spouses and children.
- Loved their transgender children and were eager to support an organization that would fight for their rights.
These issues are as pertinent and urgent today as they were 25 years ago. They’re personal for me, too: my wife and I have three children, and the safety and security of my family are critically important. 25 years ago, we didn’t have marriage equality; that happened nationwide in 2015. Today, in 2025, that right is in peril.
When I joined HRC, it was just about to embark on a significant technology change, from their legacy member database to something new. That was Revolution CRM from ROI Solutions. ROI has been helping to power HRC’s mission ever since.
After HRC, I spent 13 years working in nonprofit software, and a key skill in my job was listening to our customers so I could communicate what they needed. I worked with so many organizations that were all doing different things and had different needs from their software.
In 2019, my business partner Charlotte Kresse and I started Raise HECK to help nonprofits choose and use the best technology to power their missions. Yet again, we further developed our listening skills. We talk to nonprofits daily who are doing incredible, important work, and they need their technology to empower them without burdening their time. We need to listen well so we can make the best recommendations.
That’s part of why I love ROI Solutions. They don’t just provide software solutions. Their team also listens to their customers. That listening results in software configuration to meet their needs and also powers the development of new solutions that keep pace with changing technology.
At the end of the day, technology is a tool for nonprofits. Good technology helps them listen better to their supporters. And it helps them to turn that listening into action, to protect our rights and make the world a safer, kinder, more equal place.
