[alumNY News] A Message from Eric and Shy
Just a heads up that today will be the last day as hackNY staff for Shy and Eric, we are transitioning back to being volunteer board members.
We came on last summer with a love for hackNY and desire to see it continue to flourish and with board approval, a long list of things we wanted to accomplish within a short timeline. I’m proud to say we completed most of the things we set out to do, especially around fundraising, the fellowship, alumNY engagement and org administration.
A few highlights:
Fundraising
We raised a record $63,000+ from the community, and for the first time ever have monthly recurring revenue thanks to donations from you
Worked with a consultant to create and begin implementation of a fund development plan for the org
Groundwork laid for community and major gift fundraising campaigns
Identified grants which hackNY would be a good candidate
Fellowship
Ran another successful summer in 2024 with 20 Fellows
Ontrack for a successful 2025 with admissions being completed next week
Thank you to volunteer mentors, reviewers, interviewers, Sakib Jalal h’16 (Director of Admissions) and Emma Tung h’23 (Marketing)!
Refreshed Fellowship Management handbook
Website
Refreshed most of the site, especially the Fellowship page
Created new pages for alumNY Spotlights, Speakers, Support us (more on the way)
Published 10 new blog posts
Fixed DNS and other issues behind the scenes that were interfering with SEO and email deliverability
Thank you Harrison Liddiard h’15!
Communications
Twice monthly newsletters for alumNY (Eric’s status of hackNY and Shy’s community showcase)
Moved from Mailchimp/Squarespace to Buttondown for email marketing/automation, saving money and time
Refreshed public email list of 5,000 past attendees, fellows, applicants and opt-ins
Increased transparency with alumNY
Events
Restarting hackNY public programming for the first time since 2019 with our Spring Conference
Hosted Fall Reunion
Regular occurring alumNY events
alumNY speakers during the summer
Monthly hackNights
Supported community members - hosting events for our fellows to meet alumNY and help them interview (Thanks Claire Durand h’16)
Org/Admin
Updated old bank and financial controls and services to enable more automatic processing and auditing
Completed annual nonprofit audit and certification
Deployed an expensing system to better track spend and simplify mentor’s lives
Shifted to a virtual PO Box to cut down on missed physical mail
Audited recurring expenses to cut or find cheaper alternatives
Supporting the board
Helped the board identify new board members to grow our team
What’s next? In order to preserve hackNY’s cash flow, we’ll stop paid work (which was already less than half market rate), return to the board and serve as volunteers again. We’ll continue to work on the fund development plan (working on major donor gifts, applying for grants, experimenting with new programs, stewarding donors), board development, running the fellowship, staying nonprofit compliant.
Thanks for inspiring us, with all the uncertainty in the world now, hackNY’s mission is all the more important. We want to keep the community strong and keep hackNY around for another 15 years and more. Neither of us is going away, and we are very proud of what we were able to accomplish during this period with your support.
There’s still work to do, if you have questions, suggestions, want to help, reach out anytime.
Cheers,
Eric and Shy