“Steve’s updates helped remind me what a nimble team I work with. We’re all students, teachers and sharers of knowledge, and the weekly emails really captured that spirit. Steve was busy sharing what he had learned with us, and at the same time he was learning himself and encouraging us to share back. I also loved that he shared the imperfection of his own life with us: He meditates to help handle the stress, he’s working from a kitchen table … he was there with us. It made me feel that I didn’t have to measure myself against something impossible. Both of my kids know Steve’s name now because I’d call them over and read things out to them from the updates. They tease me about it now, but I’ve seen some of those ideas stick!”
Diane Dellafiora
Senior Customer Success Manager
“A lot of the commentary in the business market was that, in this kind of crisis, you need a leader to take a command and control position. Like it’s a war, right? So you need a Commander! And they have to grab the reins, give orders, and tell people what to do every step of the way. Yet that was not what Steve did. Instead, he inspired, he connected, he understood. He brought some real emotion to what he wrote, and I think that hit a lot of us in a different way to what we expected. He was going for inspiration rather than commands. And we really needed that in some of those tough weeks. As a result, in my opinion, everyone was able to rise to the occasion in special and unpredictable ways.”
Parrish Snyder
Chief Sales Officer
“Reading Steve’s updates was like being showered with positivity. But it wasn’t just a relentless and mindless positivity. He was honest about the stuff that wasn’t working or about how he was hurting. And that sense of us all being in this together, it sort of made it feel like there was something positive even in the bad experiences, and if we looked hard enough we could get something valuable from them.”
Joe Duca
Vice President of Product Management
“When the pandemic started, I was just happy to have a CEO who was really communicating. We were all worried about OneCause and about the nonprofits we worked with, so it was a big relief that Steve was there and keeping us updated. But what was really interesting was that somewhere around the third or fourth update, the tone shifted, and we got to see another side of Steve. We were still getting the information about the business and progress and our cultural bedrock. But he started sharing his reading, opening up his own thoughts, and using the mails to share perspectives on life – his, as we call them, ‘silver linings of COVID.’ It made me feel more connected, and I was also like, ‘Yes! Someone gets what I feel, thank goodness!'”
Kelly Velasquez-Hague
VP, Marketing
“One of the things that impressed me most about the updates was Steve’s ability to keep up with the cadence. To put these updates out every week seemed like a lot of work. So I really appreciated the effort that Steve was putting in to keeping everyone up to date. And then, as time went on, the emails started evolving, changing a little bit at a time and taking on this kind of inspirational messaging. But it wasn’t corny. He was able to find something useful almost anywhere: TV shows, bands, philosophers. He was riffing off something new every time. And it really did help.”
Rick Seifert
Senior Director, IT
“I don’t remember ever feeling so lost as when the pandemic began. I had been with OneCause for over a decade; it was part of my identity; with my daughter’s nonprofit a OneCause customer, it was even part of our family life. So seeing the company … the whole fundraising sector … under threat like that, it really struck at my heart. But then Steve’s updates started appearing in my inbox. What I noticed most was Steve’s focus on taking care of us. He was looking out for us and our families, speaking to our hearts and reinforcing our values. It was powerful. He took care of us so that we could take care of the people who were taking care of our communities. I felt my mindset shift every time I read those updates. They helped me so that I could help others.”
Dawn Lego
Director, Brand Engagement & Channel Marketing
“The updates were vital for maintaining a positive attitude and staying focused on adapting to the ever-changing situation, including different regulations across the country. We needed Steve’s reminder to think about our customers and to be mindful of the challenges they were facing. Steve was super helpful keeping us on mission to increase customer fundraising. What really helped was in October Steve reminded us of our values. He did this over several weeks and it inspired me to go the extra mile for our customers and to share this message with Services team members. There were good reasons that we had developed our values, they were our north star to help us become great and overcome incredible challenges.”
James Rischar
Chief Services Officer
“I think Steve started to express what we were all feeling. He was trying to connect with the entire organization to make us feel like we weren’t alone. And we weren’t! We had this Zoom family that started to form, where we were connecting with people on our computer screens. They were an outlet, a little window onto the world outside my home. And Steve’s updates put a framework around that, helping to create the feeling that these new ways of interacting were meaningful, that we were all part of something, that we weren’t alone.”
Dan Gross
VP, Revenue Operations & Strategic Partnerships
“Steve got pretty personal in some of his updates. He was sharing details about his family, talking about what he was going through and what they were going through, and it was just … he was going through the same things as the rest of us. So it was nice to feel that we weren’t alone. Even though we were all in our bubbles, there was a common experience that Steve was writing about and it was something that linked us all together.”
Brad Ring
Inside Sales Manager
“I’m always hungry for information, and with the pandemic upending everything I wanted to know as much as I could about what was going on. But, especially at the start of things, it was hard to find anything that was reassuring or well-grounded: There was just a lot of baseless speculation flying around. Steve’s updates were a great antidote to that. They were like an oasis of normality, stability and reason. I came away from them feeling more informed, which was great, but I also came away feeling better about where we were and where we were going. And that was really important to me.”
Stephanie Ragozzino
Chief Product Officer
“I responded to Steve’s updates a couple of times. You know, sent him a mail about something he said. And I wasn’t really expecting a reply. But every time I mailed him, I’d get a response. We’d end up having a bit of back and forth about experiences we’d both had or some ideas we shared. So the updates were kind of like an open door, right? They were a way in. He’d share what was going on in his life and in his head and he’d invite us to share right back. And that sense of connection, that feeling that we’re really all together in this, I think that’s one of the best things about working at OneCause.”
Brendan Heinz
Manager, Business Systems Development
“Steve truly brought all of us on a journey with him through the pandemic. His updates were his authentic self, they were helpful, relevant and really gave me hope. It was personally what I needed to hear so many times on any given week and allowed me to slow down and take a step back. I knew they were impacting others as well as they would come up in conversations. During the many weeks full of the unknown, he inspired and connected with us each in different ways. I am grateful for his passion and commitment to keep the updates going for so long, and even still today. He continued to shine a light for our future all throughout and that, I think, really contributed to our success as a team.”
Karrie Wozniak
Chief Marketing Officer
