Colleen Wilson-Legge, Senior Strategist, ‘Furbus’ enthusiast
What does one do when Streetlight Digital, Atlanta, GA, 400 peer to peer fundraisers and a Furbus collide?
Yes, that’s right — if you happened to be at the Streetlight Digital Happy Hour Monday night before the Peer to Peer Professional Forum kicked off in Atlanta, we decided that renting a Furbus to continue on to the next event with DonorDrive would be the next right thing to do.
And well, was it ever.
We loaded up 30 or so people, played an egregious amount of tunes from the ‘80s and ‘90s, sang at the top of our lungs and danced our way to the next location (Thank you DonorDrive and OP3 for hosting us!). And it just so happens that during that quick bus trip, Streetlight Digital also found our anthem within the lyrics of Don’t Stop Believin’ (shout out to Kimmi Rasky of Wounded Warrior Project!).
We are indeed:
Streetlight(s), people
Livin' just to find emotion
But wait, wasn’t this a conference? What did you learn? How does this connect back to the Peer to Peer Professional Forum? Let me explain.
Yes, we all discussed the big pivot of 2020 and 2021. We were inspired by several organizations that had to think quickly as they engaged with their loyalists and figured out new ways to acquire in our ‘virtual’ world. We heard those ‘that’s so 2020’ words like disruption, volatility and social-distancing. We were reminded to return to the basics of peer to peer fundraising — recruit, coach, retain and had the 2021 Peer to Peer Top 30 revealed to us. To top it all off, we heard from many smart people, the best of the best, in the industry.
But what I (and the rest of the Streetlight team) enjoyed the most was being removed from our ‘Zoom boxes’ and connecting with so many of you that have worked round the clock over the last two years. You were stretched far beyond what we ever thought possible to keep events and peer to peer fundraising alive and well. Yes, we are still having to crawl our way back up. But friends — the world shut down. We couldn’t be with our fundraisers face-to-face. We had to rethink technology and connection. And so many of you had children or other loved ones at home you were tending to. All things that require a significant amount of attention (I see you working mamas!).
So yes, we took a moment that Monday night to celebrate. And maybe, for just a moment, forget a little bit of the pandemic world over the last two years. And if you weren’t on the ‘Furbus’ with Streetlight we hope you took a moment to be proud of yourself and your team for what you had to do to keep your missions alive and moving forward.
We are Streetlight people. We are storytellers. We are content and data enthusiasts. But when it really comes down to it, we are ‘livin’ just to find emotion’. At the heart of our work at Streetlight Digital, we always go back to relationships and why they matter in our work with you and each other. Maybe you can take that back into your own workplace moving forward — acknowledging what you have all had to push through in the last two years so that you and your team don’t stop believin’ in what’s on the horizon and how you will work together to come back better for your fundraisers, and quite possibly for yourself.
— Words and wisdom from Colleen Wilson-Legge, Senior Strategist
