Tamira Chapman, CEO & Co-Founder, Storehouse in a Box, joins ChedHER to discuss how she's creating a data-driven approach to fundraising, what's driving the company's growth and success, and gives advice for other women of color in the tech industry.

How This Company is Fueling Fundraising as a Service

storehouse in a box uses technology to create a data driven approach to fundraising and its founder has been named one of the top 10 in Jpmorgan's fastest growing women owned and women led companies of 2022. And we have her here with us. Joining us now is Tomorrow chapman Ceo and co founder of Storehouse In a Box Tomorrow. Thank you so much for joining us today in studio at cheddar. It's an honor to be with you today. Thank you for having me. So let's talk about the mission of your company first. What can you tell us about that? So storehouses, mission is sustainable and recurring revenue for all nonprofits. We imagine a world where every single nonprofit can do good with no lack of resources. A couple of years ago we determined that there was $7 trillion being spent annually in the consumer good space. So we thought if non profits could simply enter that stream of commerce in an authentic way, they would have an opportunity to redirect some of those funds back to their organizations to continue to do good. Absolutely no storehouse in a box focuses on fundraising as a service. Can you tell us what exactly this is for Sure. So fundraising as a services, You focus on doing that work. We focus on raising the money. So storehouses a turnkey fundraising solution. When we decide to partner with an organization, we gather your member data. We draw key insights and then we design curate and manufacture products that your members will absolutely love by virtue of doing that, you're able to raise more money for your organization Now. You work with nonprofits. As you mentioned, also, Fortune 500 companies and educational institutions. All of these big companies. Can you walk us through how you've had an impact on each of these different sort of categories of business here. You got it. So today storehouse has shipped over four million products to all 50 states and almost every single continent. And so what that means for those organizations is that they've been able to fundraise at least 10 times with their were previously doing before the relationship with storehouse, these organizations have managed to raise millions of dollars annually and deepen the connection with their member base. You just dropped a lot of figures that I'm gonna drop one more here. So storehouse generated over $100 million in revenue in just five years. What's generating your growth and success here? It's really um, a personal and deep connection with the uh Audience that we serve. And so because we're using data driven insights to unlock trends, it means that we're manufacturing the products that customers actually want when they get these products, they love them in a very public way. Normally on social media, when that happens, that means that we get a repeat customer and normally 1-2 additional customers and that's driving our success. We are literally obsessed with customer preferences. Now I want to talk about your accomplishments here too. You were named to the 15th, annual, 50 fastest growing women owned and women led companies list would have been some of your biggest challenges as you grow this company? Yeah, so storehouse has a lot of opportunities. Our greatest challenge deciding which organization to onboard. Next. Aside from that, of course we deal with the normal run of the mill challenges, you know, supply chain shortages, congestion related to logistics and the shortage of human capital. But our team manages to move through those issues pretty well. Now. Speaking of challenges, the tech industry is traditionally white and male dominated. What advice do you have for other women of color who are looking to break into industries like tech? Yeah, so very good questions. So women of color are the most founded demographic, but the least funded. And so the advice to women of color and really to all women is that you have to be consistent and you have to be flexible in terms of how you get to your goal and they should also remain very creative with how they get to market. You know, the reality is that power concedes nothing without a demand. So that means that we have to continuously show up. We have to knock on these doors, sit at these tables even when it might not feel good. I went from a first generation college student to the eighth fastest woman on growing company in the world for that reason, I know that they could achieve the same thing. you know, I know we commonly hear some of the challenges associated with female entrepreneurship access to funding, for example, what are some of these challenges that you've identified and what are your top tips for overcoming them? Yeah, so one of the things that I would say is um you must be on the ground, you have to talk about your dream in a wide and broadway and you have to develop relationships. So one of the things that we did early on is that we developed relationships, for example, with Jpmorgan Chase. So before we had access to capital issue, we had already been spending time with them, they were already very familiar with our business and when the moment came where we did need access to capital, they were a phenomenal partner that wouldn't have been possible without relationship building up front. And in terms of that relationship building as well as you had kind of said, it can be uncomfortable for women too, and women of color, I imagine, to enter these spaces that have a lot of white male dominated energy in them. So do you have any tips for the networking that needs to happen to establish these kind of inroads for potential funding in the future? I think that um as opposed to looking at it in terms of the lack a lot of these people desire to be allies, they simply don't know how um so we should not just assume because it's white male dominated, that they don't desire to help. A lot of times they do want to help. They just don't understand the first step that they need to take. So when you actually show up and you tell them what you need, you may be surprised that you find an advocate on the other side. It's a really great advice there. Now. Finally, I want to ask you about the future of store in the box. What's next? So to date, a lot of our work has really centered around nonprofits and so what we've discovered is that there's a lot of opportunity with us actually broadening our business model to other industries. So that's what you can see next for us. Well, we will definitely be watching out for you to Mira. Excellent. Thank you so much for joining us today. That's Tamara chapman Ceo and co founder of Storehouse In a Box.