Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brodi Nicholas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Brodi, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
t all started with a neighbor and a dream.
Growing up, I’d see my next-door neighbor Sam playing basketball out front every single day. I got so used to waving to Sam every time I pulled out of the driveway, and when I noticed Sam hadn’t been outside for a few days, it made me wonder where Sam was.
After a couple of weeks went by, I ran into Sam’s mom, and she let me know Sam had been diagnosed with leukemia and now lives at the hospital. This made me realize how hard life could be for some people, and how fortunate I was to have good health and the ability to have choices daily, unlike Sam and other kids in the hospital.
I had no idea what I was doing at the time, but I just knew I wanted to do something to help. I was a musician, so my friends and I made wooden bracelets and sold them at my shows. All the money we made from the bracelet sales went on to help fulfill a few of Sam’s dreams and after experiencing the power of our direct impact with Sam, we decided to sponsor another child, and another child, and another child, and slowly, but surely our efforts grew into what many know of today as Campaign One At A Time.
We are now going on 8 years of sponsoring children with life threatening illnesses, and through this simple concept of helping one child at a time, we’ve been able to directly impact thousands of children like Sam, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I was a full time musician in 2014, and when I saw my next door neighbor Sam diagnosed with cancer, I saw an opportunity to use my platform to help Sam’s family through this difficult time. It was just a small side project, but after seeing the direct impact it played on Sam’s life, we decided to sponsor another child and saw how much it not only helped the child and their family, but also how much it enriched our lives, as well as the communities involved! When we host campaigns for children, we set a specific fundraising amount for their campaign and the dream we want to fulfill for them, and let viewers and donors be directly part of that child’s story. Even by just donating a dollar or two, donors are able to be directly involved in helping make a child’s dream true. We have had supporters over the years that have been part of making multiple children’s dreams come true. We’re really proud of the model we’ve built because it allows anybody the opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves. We don’t have government grants, or big corporate funding. What we do have is a large community of individuals that do what they can when they can, and we’re able to show the big impact they are making.
On the impact side of things, we pride ourselves on not only fundraising and making dreams come true for these kids, but we’re really proud of the relationships we build with our campaign families. It’s a super interactive and personal process, and our goal is to not just give a gift, but more so become an extension of their family and a resource for life. That’s where we feel we are truly different. We give the families an ongoing experience. We also pride ourselves on our story telling, which gives us an opportunity to shed massive awareness on not only the child going through a diagnosis, but their illness as well. We are able to connect with press and local businesses to show that these children are right in their backyard and they need our support.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Like many people, the Covid-19 pandemic gave us an opportunity to pivot. As time has gone on, I’ve learned to look at hardships as opportunities because it forces us to grow and adapt, and pivot. One of the big factors in what made our organization so personable was that we spent on one time with the kids we serviced; taking them to events, going on trips, visiting them at the hospital and in their homes. When the pandemic happened, everything previously mentioned was no longer an option. This forced us to think out side of the box, and make deeper connections with people across the country digitally. In a very short time, we were able to set up ongoing FaceTimes for children with their favorite princesses, and even hosted lego building parties, as well as arts and craft tutorials, all via Zoom! The kids loved it, and the families appreciated the effort we put forth to keep those relationships blooming for these kids. Donors loved it too, and during the pandemic, we more than tripled our fundraising efforts, without being able to host physical events as we previously were able to.
How’d you meet your business partner?
Nick Ordonez is one of our campaign directors and our current CFO. I met Nick a few years ago through a mutual friend, and him and his wife became monthly donors. They were very involved and volunteered anytime they could. As we started to grow more through the pandemic, I started needing help on the accounting side of things. Nick has years of accounting experience and offered to volunteer and help get our books in order. As we went spent more time together, he would see me working on different campaigns and see the back end of what it takes to help make a dream come true. At the time, we were only sponsoring one child per month, and out of multiple applications, I would only be able to pick one kid at a time. One day while working on numbers, he saw me pondering over a couple of our youth applications, and I shared each child’s story with him. I ended up picking a family to move forward with, but Nick felt deeply about the other family I was going to just send a warrior box to; we like to help every child that applies with us, so even for children that we don’t run a campaign for, we at the bare minimum send them a warrior box(care package) and/or meal in the hospital. The family I hadn’t chosen had a son with cancer, but the sister also had Down Syndrome. Nick’s brother has Down Syndrome so he felt deeply connected to that families story. He asked me why we couldn’t sponsor both, and I let him know that unfortunately, we just don’t have the bandwidth or the funds to sponsor more than one family, so he then asked if him and his wife can host a campaign for the other family. He asked if I could just show him everything that I do to make a campaign run, and him and his wife would replicate it, and if they don’t reach the goal, they will fund the dream. I honestly couldn’t find a reason to say no, so we went ahead and launched both campaigns. in just over a week, Nick was able to fully fund that families trip to Disneyland and it opened our eyes that the process I’ve built over the last few years really works, and can be utilized by more than just one person! Since then, we have launched 5 regions of Campaign One At A Time across the United States and are in the process of hiring another campaign coordinator, which will enable us to sponsor 15-20 kids per month, when just over a year ago, we were sponsoring just one child per month. This growth is a huge thanks to Nick, for helping to open my eyes and seeing the bigger opportunity we had to directly impact even more kids!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.campaignoaat.org
- Instagram: instagram.com/brodinicholas
- Facebook: twitter.com/brodinic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brodi-nicholas-829616109/
- Twitter: twitter.com/brodinicholas
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SpreadGoodSquad
Image Credits
Campaign One At A Time