Making The World a Better Place Every Day: Why I Love Working at iWave
Written by Karen Wight, VP Finance, iWave
I’m often asked “How are things at iWave? Are you liking it?” I don’t think people are prepared for my response which is always “It is absolutely the best place I’ve ever worked.” A big statement, but certainly a sentiment felt by my colleagues that I have the pleasure of working with every day.
So what’s the magic sauce here at iWave that makes me love coming to work every day? Our entire team has one thing in common: a passion for helping our nonprofit, education, and healthcare clients be successful. Our company has a bold vision: to create a world where all nonprofits have the required funding to achieve their world-changing missions. It is bold, but it’s the driving force behind what we do here every day.
A Bold Vision
At iWave, we love our clients and we love them for what they do. As human beings, we are naturally empathetic creatures looking for connections, belonging, to care for others and to be cared for, especially in a time of need. Our clients are the epitome of this – they are there after natural disasters strike, working to cure deadly diseases, protecting our environment, feeding the hungry, educating future leaders, fighting to stop school violence, protecting animals that can’t speak for themselves, and the list goes on and on. Our clients are truly some of the most incredible human beings on the planet. They are driven to do more good and are constantly fighting the lack of financial resources, as there’s never enough money. As a company, we can’t serve up a product that wastes their time. They need data and information they can trust.
It Takes A Village
The saying “it takes a village” is really how the world works. It takes our incredible clients and their teams, the tireless volunteer hours, their generous financial donors to make their visions a reality. Our role in this village is an enabler, but we have our own village here working to support our clients. We have a team of incredible people all bringing their skills to the table – the brilliant minds in product that work to increase the reliability and usability of our software/results, our sales team that seeks out new organizations that will benefit from our product, my colleagues that nurture and care for our clients to ensure they get the most out of our products, and everyone else in between, including my team in Finance! We support our clients in a vital way so they have the necessary contributions to be on the front line making a difference.
We have one job to do as a team and our role in the larger village – we aim to equip our clients with an easy-to-use platform containing the industry’s highest quality philanthropic, wealth, and demographic data so they have the actionable intel needed to fundraise with confidence. It’s a big deliverable.
Defining Nonprofits
Over my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with nonprofits. However, the reference to “the nonprofit sector” often feels like an insult to the very fiber of these organizations. Nonprofit is not a description of what they do, but of their taxation status. They are organizations that need significant financial resources to carry out their incredible missions. The Council for Nonprofits has a great quote that addresses the question “what is a “nonprofit?” I think their answer says it all:
“Charitable nonprofits embody the best of America. They provide a way for people to work together for the common good, transforming shared beliefs and hopes into action. They give shape to our boldest dreams, highest ideals, and noblest causes. America’s 1.3 million charitable nonprofits feed, heal, shelter, educate, inspire, enlighten, and nurture people of every age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status, from coast to coast, border to border, and beyond. They strengthen the fabric of our communities. Every single day.”
As an iWave employee, I am honored to help these wonderful organizations change the world. I go home every night and share with my family the great things that our clients are doing in the hope that it inspires them to help make the world a better place.
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