Why We Started FundMiner

Co-founders Chelsea Lamego & Alejandro Stevenson-Duran share their story. 

Hi, I am Chelsea Lamego, the co-founder and CEO of FundMiner. From a very young age I had a passion for building and fixing things as if it were hard-wired into me. Imagining a better state or way of doing things comes naturally and I can't help but act on those instincts. Later in life, this passion emerged as entrepreneurial "side hustles," before culminating into FundMiner.  

Like most people who work in the professional fundraising and advancement space I fell into the job before it became my professional career. My first foray into the nonprofit world was serving as the Executive Director of El Paso Opera, a small arts organization with a straightforward mission. They mostly raise unrestricted funds making them the perfect place to learn the ins and outs of running a small nonprofit operation.  

When I advanced in my career, I returned to my alma mater, The University of Texas at El Paso, to oversee their much larger and complex advancement operation. I was shocked by how difficult the work was, but I love a challenge. I became obsessed with learning industry best practices to make processes more efficient and build a top-notch fundraising operation.  

My five years at UTEP is when my career in the nonprofit and advancement operations world intersected with my passion for building things and entrepreneurship. UTEP is where FundMiner was born. 

Picture this: Hundreds of fund managers across your organization manage thousands of restricted funds with unique purposes and criteria. Those hundreds of fund managers need to know what funds they oversee, how much is in each fund, and what the funds can be used for. Information is scattered across five siloed, unintegrated systems, some of which fund managers don’t have access to. Their only option is to call you. Your job feels impossible, and you can’t keep up with information requests and processes. Worse, these administrative challenges are causing inefficiencies across the organization impacting faculty, staff, and students.   

When I experienced frustrations and challenges with our systems and processes, my instincts and entrepreneurial hard wiring kicked into gear. I knew there had to be a better way and I started working on an internal solution. That solution was the inspiration for and first version of FundMiner. 

I later learned that other institutional-level fundraising organizations faced the same administrative nightmares in the processes related to tracking, awarding, and reporting on the funds they manage. I was inspired to solve these challenges for other organizations and  decided I wanted to take FundMiner to market.  

I connected with my friend, Alejandro Stevenson-Duran, a technical and product-driven leader with experience building and shipping enterprise software from zero to millions of users across the globe. Alejandro used the foundations he learned studying Electrical and Computer Engineering at UT Austin to specialize in Machine Learning and Data Science and had built an impressive career in tech. He has served as a Senior Product Manager for Microsoft's Substrate Intelligence division where he shipped intelligent experiences such as Smart Reply, M365 Copilot, and Viva Topics, as well as being part of the team that built what is now known as Microsoft Teams. He also worked at Meta as a Technical Product Manager with the core goal of improving the performance of the News Feed on Android devices. 

Alejandro loves FundMiner's mission and the ability to impact the FundMiner team and each of our customers in a significant way. He decided to co-found FundMiner as Chief of Product and Technology.  

When Chelsea first told me about the challenges she had to overcome to ensure millions of restricted dollars were deployed and reported on, I was intrigued. After our initial conversations, I saw the limited tools that existed in the fund management space, and I still remember my surprise when noting many of the hurdles that countless advancement professionals had to overcome to do their jobs effectively.  

I distinctly remember three main reasons I decided to leave my corporate position and co-found FundMiner with Chelsea. First, FundMiner’s core mission around helping fundraising organizations maximize their social impact perfectly resonated with my desire to serve a very specific sector in the community. Second, my co-founder’s deep domain expertise and unmatched drive; having such a co-founder is an incalculable factor in improving a startup’s chances of success. Third, I knew that my background and strengths were extremely complimentary to what we needed to evolve FundMiner from a solution to a top-performing tech company with a strong enterprise product.  

If you see us in person, ask how the stars aligned and how a Colorado mountain coincidence played a role in our co-founder's journey. It’s a good story, but too long for this article.  

When we think about the bigger reasons that drove us to found FundMiner, we think about the many groups that will benefit from our product and the incredible amount of tangible impact it can unlock worldwide. 

FundMiner aggregates siloed fund data from commonly used systems, breaking down communication and information barriers, and supporting a connected, transparent, and effective fund management practice. Our platform puts data in the hands of the right people across an organization, helping them make data-driven spending decisions ensuring funds are utilized optimally to achieve their mission and honor donor intent. 

With FundMiner, organizations are able maximize their impact and support more of the communities, beneficiaries, and purposes they exist to serve. More fund utilization means an organization can accomplish more of its mission. For example, using a larger % of your scholarship funds means more students are receiving scholarships and using more of your research funds. This in turn allows for more meaningful research  is conducted. We want to help organizations unlock more of the impact they intend to create. 

FundMiner strengthens donor relationships, fosters trust, and improves donor experiences by facilitating transparent and timely usage and reporting on funds. Donors graciously and selflessly give hard-earned money to organizations hoping to contribute to their mission and "pay it forward." They deserve to have their resources utilized in an impactful way and they deserve to understand the kind of impact they are making. Plus, “8 out of 10 donors today want to see proof of impact in exchange for their continued support,” so organizations must be prepared to deliver. FundMiner helps institutions accomplish this by boosting staff productivity, making information available to stakeholders, automating manual tasks, and streamlining processes.   

Happier donors reinvest. FundMiner helps fundraising organizations increase their fundraising revenue and be more effective with their capital, allowing them to grow and make more of an impact. FundMiner helps fundraising organizations build a stronger donor pyramid through effective fund management.  

We built FundMiner for all the people and reasons we mentioned above, and we’re on a mission to unlock more funding and impact for communities and initiatives across the world with our platform.  

Are you a fundraising organization looking to enhance your operation? Reach out to learn more.