· What was your education experience?
Melanie McEvoy
I earned a degree in Women’s Studies and Sociology from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, which is where I grew up. While getting my degree I served as President of the pro-choice students group on campus and was an extremely active organizer in the Las Vegas women’s community. My activism experience is actually what I call upon the most for my event planning and fundraising experience – it’s all people skills and organizing. I didn’t realize until much later in life that I had always been an entrepreneur, just not the kind that was focused on making money – more of a social entrepreneur that is always creating opportunities to do things that inspire and help others.
· What was your professional experience?
After college I moved from Las Vegas to Washington DC in order to pursue a career helping women in politics, which I couldn’t do in Vegas unless I wanted to be a professional volunteer all my life. It was in DC, working for the Women’s Campaign Fund where I first began raising money and organizing fundraising events; and where I learned the important role that money has in running effective organizations and campaigns; thus began my passion for raising money for good causes. After DC, I moved around the country and worked for various feminist candidates and issue campaigns. For nearly four years I worked on back-to-back campaigns in Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City, Las Vegas and Connecticut before deciding to try my hand at consulting and taking on multiple candidates and causes at once instead of one at a time. What I realized is that NYC is such a mecca for fundraising that most candidates and issue-based causes needed to come here to raise money, so I was in a good place to be.
· When did you start your business? How did you come up with the opportunity?
I officially began my business on March 15, 1999 with a partner, another woman who was providing fundraising consulting services to a variety of organizations and candidates. We began as Levine/McEvoy Fundraising Consultants and were literally the only game in town when it came to providing political fundraising services to candidates and causes. I met my partner when a campaign I worked on hired her to assist us with fundraising. We worked on a joint project together before determining that we should partner up officially. It was all very organic and didn’t require a lot of market research or planning, and it happened very fast.
Our goals initially were to do good work for good causes (in order words, to make a difference); to enjoy the autonomy of working for ourselves and not have to work for jerks; and to make money. Our philosophy was that we wouldn’t work for a cause or candidate we wouldn’t support with our own money or for an organization that we wouldn’t join. We enjoyed working for really great candidates and organizations that we chose.
After three years together, my partner wanted a different role in politics and decided to opt out of our business and pursue a master’s degree, have a baby and move to another country. We remain to this day very close and she is my number one business advisor. I decided to keep the business, buy her out, and refocus in away from the candidate based fundraising and more on the non-profit, issue-oriented organizational based fundraising and to focus on producing fundraising events. I loved event work and raising money for good causes and wanted to combine the two into a viable business, which I was able to do after two years on my own.
Currently, the majority of our clients are social-cause oriented non-profits; which is very different from when I started on my own in 2002 when the majority of my clients were political candidates. We are now known as one of the premier fundraising event planning firms in the city, with political roots.
· How did any outside advisors make a difference in your company?
I hired my first business coach this past year and she has made a huge difference in how I go about the business of running my business. I used to never view myself as a bona-fide business owner, however now I see how much of an entrepreneur I actually am and have completely changed my mindset about how to effectively run my business, which continues to grow in size, capacity and bottom line.
· Tell us about your business and the services it provides.
We provide fundraising strategies and event planning services. We do event logistics from a-z and help organizations maximize their event fundraising revenues while keeping their expenses low.
· What were the most difficult gaps to fill as you began to grow?
We have been growing over the past few years and what I find the most challenging is balancing all the demands of the clients and maintaining our high level of services while not being the main person that the client speaks with on a daily basis. It’s transferring my own experience and expertise to others with less experience and teaching them how to deal with clients effectively while not letting the client feel underserved. Hiring effective staff is a huge challenge since we are still a small business and can’t pay huge salaries. And whenever there is a service gap to fill, I am the one to fill it personally, which takes away from my marketing the company to bring in new clients.
This issue’s theme is “Change” – Would you like to share with WomenandBiz.com’s readers, when your business faced major changes?
When I bought my partner out I was so proud of myself and felt very accomplished; however reality hit when the demands on my time became overwhelming because the clients were used to having two people they could go to at any given time and now they only had one person – me. Those first six-nine months as a solo owner were the most difficult and challenging and I spent many days questioning my decision to continue the business; until I finally came to a conclusion of what I needed to do to make changes and began implementing those changes. Suffice to say, it was one of the hardest years of my life. But once I changed the focus of the business and redefined my goals things became much clearer and I was able to survive that first year on my own (with a very small profit margin) and put plans in place to grow the business in the right direction for me. Now my dream has been realized and I have new dreams for my business.
· What are your plans for the future?
I am looking forward to continuing to grow my business in the non-profit event based fundraising vein, as well as expanding our services in providing conference planning services and general fundraising consulting. I intend on becoming a leader in industry.
· What things do you find personally rewarding as an entrepreneur? What have been the trade-offs?
I love working for myself and find that to be the utmost of rewards. The trade-off I suppose is that it’s your name that’s out there and therefore you have the ultimate responsibility for what goes well and what doesn’t. Mistakes get made as we are only human, and regardless of if it’s your own or your staff’s, you have responsibility.
· What advice would you give an aspiring entrepreneur? Could you suggest the three most important lessons you have learned?
Learning how to delegate properly and effectively and letting go are the two most valuable pieces of advice I would give to any aspiring entrepreneur. If you want to be successful, you have to learn that you can’t do it all by yourself and you need to build a solid team of supporters and help around you. If someone is a naysayer to your dream, stop talking to that person. And if you have a dream, follow it and don’t think about anything else, but be sure to take personal time along the way – balance is the key to life.
For more information, please visit http://www.mcevoyandassociates.com