8 Learnings for 8 Years
Written by Amy Merritt Campbell
This month marks eight years since we started Elevate. We were three young professionals with a shared vision who saw a need in the sector, so we jumped in—armed with ambition and plenty of coffee. Over the years, we’ve poured long hours into this work, celebrating wins, tackling tough challenges, and staying true to our core value: learning. In that spirit, we took some time to reflect on what’s brought us here. Here are a few lessons we’ve picked up along the way.
It’s possible to build a culture that balances work and life. From the start, we set out to build a workplace that reflected our values—a place where work and life could coexist. It’s not always easy, but it’s possible, and the impact it has on our team and our work is worth every bit of the effort.
Building a team and bringing people along in your vision is tough, but rewarding. Two things are true - running a business isn’t for the faint of heart, AND Elevate is a success because of the incredible people that do the work every day. Reconciling those two truths means hard conversations and long hours, but it’s worth it.
New problems are progress. It’s funny to look back and think about the things we stressed about in the early days of running the business - those things are almost second nature to us now. New challenges emerge every day, and we’re constantly at the edge of our learning. It’s hard, but it feels like that means we’re on the right path.
Business growth requires business leader growth. We knew this on the surface, but it continues to resonate as Elevate grows - in order for Elevate to be the best version of itself, the three of us have to commit to learning and growth (personally and professionally). The two go hand in hand.
Scaling requires structure. Seems obvious, right? It’s hard to balance being agile and creative with being consistent and clear, but that’s the tightrope we’re walking as we grow.
Incremental change is worth doing. There are days when we wonder why, while floating on a giant rock that’s hurtling through space, we’re stressing about things like grant reports. But we know that our work helps others make people’s lives better, and that’s worth making sure those grant reports get done.
It takes vision AND discipline to grow. People ask us all the time how we navigate business ownership with three owners. The answer is that we respect each other, we work hard to maintain trust and a healthy relationship, and we know that we each bring strengths that we need to succeed. Amy may be able to see the future (seriously, it’s uncanny), but it won’t become reality without Jessica’s ability to build a system and Hannah’s groundedness.
There’s clearly a need for the work Elevate does, and we still love doing it. There are so many ways to go about supporting nonprofits and communities to build a better world, and we’re just one of those. Eight years in, we’re still passionate about supporting communities in meaningful ways. And we’re grateful that it seems to resonate with you too.