We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stephen Machuga. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stephen below.

Stephen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you share a story with us from back when you were an intern or apprentice? Maybe it’s a story that illustrates an important lesson you learned or maybe it’s a just a story that makes you laugh (or cry)?

My fourth grade history teacher, Mr. Locke, taught me a lesson I still carry with me to this day forty years later. Blew off the reading assignment or didn’t do the homework? Fine. Come to the front of the class and flip a coin. Tails, you get a demerit, but heads? You get no punishment. Why? Because life is like that. Sometimes, you take a risk and do something wrong, nearly getting into trouble, but the universe decides to take mercy on you and let you slide. Interesting lesson to hit a 4th grader with, but its stuck with me all these years.

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.

Stack Up is a military charity supporting US and allied veterans through the power of video games and geek culture through our pillar programs:

Supply Crates: sending boxes of games and gear to veterans deployed to combat zones, recovering in military hospitals, or struggling back home.
Air Assault: flying disabled or deserving veterans to various gaming events like ComicCon, gaming studio tours, or esports events
Stacks: 30+ teams of volunteers getting out into their community and doing volunteer work locally
Stack Up’s Overwatch Program (StOP): peer-to-peer veteran suicide prevention online
Phalanx House: a $2M mansion retrofitted into an “adult tree fort” gaming-focused community center for veterans based in Los Angeles

We are doing services to veteran mental health differently, as we’re able to provide support directly to veterans where they feel most comfortable: in the comfort of their own house through gaming. Primarily a post-9/11 veteran organization, we are the next generation of the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars is now.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Running a charity, the highs are high, but the lows can be devastating. I’ve had dozens of opportunities to give up or quit, but because I know I have something special here, I continue to stick it out. I even had the opportunity to “sell out” as it were and go to work for a major charitable organization. But I believe in our mission. Every year, it feels like a few steps closer to greatness, but it’s also been 14 years of charity work at this point, I don’t know how much more I’ve got in the tank.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Do the right thing, always, and good things happen. It’s a weird thing to have to promote, but there have been multiple times where I could have taken the “easy out”, as it were. Pretend you didn’t get that email. Refuse to process that donation refund because they’re being an ass. Get into social media fights with trolls. But just doing the right thing has had the long term effect of people seeing you as “one of the good ones”. You only get one reputation as a charity: ask Wounded Warrior Project. They’ve spent the last almost 10 years trying to rebuild their legacy, but it will take an entire generation of veterans to pass before they aren’t just known for irresponsible spending of charity donations.

Contact Info:

• Website: stackup.org
• Instagram: stackupdotorg
• Twitter: stackupdotorg
• Youtube: StackUpDotOrg