Stephanie Burton
Director of Databases
Metro United Way
Louisville, KY, USA
How long have you been working for your organization?
It will be nine years in November (11/1/2011 was my official start date!)
What’s a typical day in your role like?
One of the things that I love about my job is that there really isn’t a typical day for me. At any given time, I may be working on up to ten projects. They can run the gamut from tedious tasks like scrubbing data to energizing ones where I’m trying to find a solution that is innovative and maximizes efficiency.
Can you tell us about a project you’re most proud of?
The projects I am most proud of are the ones where I came up with a solution to a problem by repurposing tools we already had on hand. For example, I created my United Way’s help desk ticketing system, using Andar survey forms. Our staff can go to one site, and from there, submit tickets for training requests, hardware/software issues, room setup needs, and more. I also created an online portal for childcare centers that participate in our Excellence Academy program to track and share with us their center, teacher, and training data using Andar iAccess.
Above: Meet Stephanie's sweet pups, Izzy and Emma.
What motivates you to come to work every day?
Knowing that there is always something that we could be doing more efficiently is what motivates me to come to work. I really enjoy finding smarter ways to get the job done.
What’s your favorite aspect of your job?
I love taking a clunky, manual process, and finding ways to automate it and make it better. Being able to take a process that once took a lot of time or money to complete and dramatically decreasing the need for that resource expenditure is very gratifying.
What are your biggest professional challenges?
The biggest professional challenge I face is encountering reluctance to try something new. People get comfortable in the way they do things, and they aren’t always willing to stop, reassess, and redesign processes to optimize them. As someone who really enjoys maximizing process efficacy, I’d say that is my biggest professional challenge.
If you could choose anyone, who would you pick as your mentor? Can you tell us why?
If I could choose anyone as a mentor, it would be Grace Hopper. She was an early pioneer in computer programming and posited that you could base a computer language on English words, which was not believed at the time. She was tenacious and curious, and I admire that in a person.
What is your personal mantra?
Quality is a probabilistic function of quantity.
Above: Stephanie winning 1st place at her county fair's bread baking contest.
Do you have hobbies outside of work? What are they?
Outside of work, I love baking bread! I’ve actually won 1st place in my county fair’s bread baking contest both times I entered.
Caring in Common is a spotlight series that showcases different nonprofit professionals on the last Friday of each month. The goal is to highlight Andar Software customers from all walks of life, levels of experience, and areas of expertise. Their answers will inspire you, give you insight about the nonprofit industry, and motivate you on both a professional and personal level.