From time to time we will profile members of the Give Lively team, revealing more about who we are, what we do and how we fit into a mix of dedicated and dynamic engineers, creatives, strategists and advocates helping nonprofits do more with digital fundraising tools.

Like the person who is the focus of this week’s profile, the full Give Lively team is passionate about using tech for social good and providing a better fundraising experience to nonprofits and donors.

Kirsten Bledsoe

What do you do at Give Lively?

I’m our Customer Support Team Lead, which means I manage most of our customer support (CS) team, keep an eye on our day-to-day trends and bigger picture goals and think about ways to advocate for our users. I’ve been with Give Lively for about three years now, and most of my time was spent as a CS specialist with a focus on our Giving Basket product. I like to think of my knowledge as really holistic and ever-expanding, which is a reason why I feel comfortable managing our team and handling any issue or question that might arise from our various types of users.

What does a day in your life at Give Lively look like?

I start my day by checking in on our team Slack channel. Part of our team starts a couple of hours before me, while some others end a couple of hours after me. This means I catch up on anything that’s already come up in the morning and do my best to make sure things can run smoothly for our late shift.

In addition, I attend occasional cross-team meetings to make sure we’re all aware of upcoming work, whether that’s from our incredible product team, our tireless engineers or a weekly catchup with our marketing team.

The rest of the time, I field questions from our team, help handle unusual cases, track data pertaining to our team’s performance and triage email tickets throughout the day to the correct folks on our team.

What do you like to do outside of Give Lively?

A lot of my free time is spent with my cat, Mustard. I also love to bake, play low-stress games on my Switch, watch TV, customize gaming keyboards and read. You can usually find me on my couch next to Mustard with a book in hand. Right now I’m reading Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll.

Family and queer community are also important to me, so you can frequently find me at my parents' house forcing them to watch a movie like “Barbie” or listen to a Reneé Rapp song, with my girlfriend making her watch “The L Word” for the first time or at my sister’s with our queer friend group for a dinner party or movie night.

What excites you about Give Lively?

For me, the intersection of creating excellent customer experiences with the work done by our nonprofit members is exciting and fulfilling. Being a part of a tech company that strives to do good instead of just turn a profit makes customer service much more interesting and human. My team gets to advocate for our users, whether they’re nonprofits, fundraisers or donors, and that advocacy is the entire purpose of our company, not a secondary priority.