One Letter at a Time: Building a Community That Sustains the Mission

<p>What becomes possible when the people closest to a mission are invited not just to participate in it, but to sustain it?</p><p>When Lucy nervously asked her volunteers to chip in $5 a month, she braced for a &quot;no.&quot; Instead, 300 people said &quot;yes&quot;—and the Stamp Squad was born. In this episode, host Dave Raley sits down with Lucy Madden, Founding CEO of Letters to a Pre-Scientist, to trace how a scrappy, pandemic-era experiment grew into a thriving recurring-giving community that now powers a meaningful slice of the organization&#39;s budget.</p><p>Letters to a Pre-Scientist connects middle schoolers in under-resourced schools with real STEM professionals for a year-long, snail-mail pen pal exchange. Lucy shares how the mission, the team, and the funding model all grew up together, and what she&#39;s learned about building something that lasts, one letter (and one stamp) at a time.</p><p>Key Topics:</p><p>1. From educator to founder — How a science teacher and mom who saw STEM sidelined for reading and math scores inherited a pen pal program through a Facebook post, then left the classroom to found the nonprofit in 2019.</p><p>2. Growing from one to a team of five — Scaling from ~850 students to 4,500, and Lucy&#39;s hard-won lesson that the founder&#39;s passion couldn&#39;t be outsourced, so she hired a program director and kept the fundraising herself.</p><p>3. The funding inflection point — A one-year foundation grant for her salary that clearly wasn&#39;t permanent, and the decision to make recurring giving the foundation of the org, not a nice-to-have.</p><p>4. The story of the Stamp Squad — Launched in 2020 to survive the pandemic (her husband&#39;s idea!), a low-budget ask video that landed 300 monthly donors, growing past 500 members, moving from $5 to $8/month—roughly the cost of one student&#39;s participation—now covering ~15% of operating costs.</p><p>5. When volunteers become sustainers — Why 90%+ of Stamp Squad members are former pen pals, and why mandatory volunteer training turned out to be the single best moment to invite recurring gifts.</p><p>Also in this episode:</p><p>- Keeping donors close with student-written thank-you notes, stickers, and virtual letter-opening parties</p><p>- A live coaching moment: Dave&#39;s 5 ways to grow donor value, plus lessons from Lucy&#39;s first upgrade campaign</p><p>- Building real community around a &quot;democratized funding model&quot;</p><p>- Dave&#39;s #1 tip for small orgs: invest in the right recurring-giving tech before you start asking</p><p>-The surprising link between monthly donors and future legacy giftsWhat could your mission look like if you gave ordinary people a clear, meaningful way to belong, and let that commitment compound? </p><p>Key Resources:</p><p>- Letters to a Pre-Scientist — Join the Stamp Squad: https://prescientist.org/stamp-squad/</p><p>- Lucy&#39;s original &quot;join the Stamp Squad&quot; invite video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVCFGDDXrHA</p><p>- Student thank-you letters (see the snail-mail magic): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BEOm9UnWc4NhsVf94uPSngwlI5nqpnvL</p><p>- The Rise of Sustainable Giving by Dave Raley: https://www.sustainablegiving.org/book</p><p>- The Center for Sustainable Giving — workshops, assessments &amp; roadmaps: https://www.sustainablegiving.org/</p><p>Special thanks to our team at Sustainable Giving: Tom, Michelle, Victoria, Kirsten and Abigail.</p>