Zoot Velasco

Change Agent, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Event planner, Foodie, Idea generator, Performer, Philanthropist, Producer, Social entrepreneur, World traveler

http://www.zootvelasco.com/about/

Building community through great community leadership

Do we need professional fundraisers in community NGOs? Community Organizations go about fundraising completely wrong. Most organizations focus on funding and then convert that to mission, leaving them always needing more. Organizations would be much more effective by focusing on mission first and making fundraising a natural part of each staff's work, ditching the "professional fundraisers" entirely. Who is best equipped to write a grant. the fundraiser or the program person who designs the program? Grants and proposals are based on program design. Who is the best to tell the mission story, the fundraiser or the marketing person? Who is best at networking in the community, the fundraiser or the CEO? Who can recruit a board member's peer, the fundraiser or the board member? Organizations would be much more effective making fundraising a small part of everyone's job with more training and salary, and getting rid of professional fundraisers. What about all the strategic partnerships that can bring in-kind donations which are mostly completely missed by orgs on their budget and in their consciousness? With this method I led a series of arts organizations that doubled their budget every 18 months, but more importantly doubled or tripled programs and mission. At one organization we grew 400% during the recession of 2008-2016 while other arts organizations shrunk by more than 20% nationwide.

I lost my muscled in my right leg surviving a childhood fire and gre up in poverty from a mentally ill single mother; yet grew up to a dozen-year career as a professional break dancer, actor and mime on TV, film and touring internationally. Overcoming these obstacles taught me to think differently as an administrator and leader. As an early adapter to TED I was able to help create the first STEAM programs in Orange County, CA which won local and statewide awards, and was inspired to other great ideas. Last year I produced a TEDx Conference.

Cooking and dancing