Meet Evan Wolfson of Collective Change in Scottsdale

Today we’d like to introduce you to Evan Wolfson.

Evan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My brother, Blake Wolfson, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in late 2011. He tragically passed away six months from the day he was diagnosed. I really wanted to do something to honor him and keep his name alive. One afternoon I had remembered him telling me he wanted to have 250,000 people give him $1 so he could buy himself a Lamborghini. We laughed about it and moved on, but for some reason, I kept thinking about that concept of $1 from a large group of people for a specific cause. While people might not be so quick to help someone get a new Lambo, I knew that if we applied that concept to giving back to the community, people would see it in an entirely different light.

That’s how the foundation of Collective Change was born. The name itself really encompasses our mission of taking small donations from a large number of people in order to amass a large donation overall. “Collective” resonates with the collective group coming together, as well as the collection of donations. “Change” is reflective of the donation amount we ask of our community, as well as the overall positive change we wish to create within the community.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
This was my first attempt and building a business. I studied Physiology in college, so there was a lot of self-education, stumbling, and failing forward. There were a lot of great lessons in that – So many people have huge aspirations but fail to execute because they don’t know how to get started. I realized that you don’t have to really know anything, you just need the passion and willingness to do whatever it takes to make your ideas a reality.

Please tell us about Collective Change.
Collective Change is a crowdfunding organization that gives back to the AZ community. We collect $1 each month from our members, and that Collective Donation Pool is donated to a new cause each month from a variety of categories including Health, Education, Environment, Animals, First Responders, and more. We try sticking to in-kind donations and make sure to film/produce a video of each donation so our donors can actually see their $1 donations at work every month. This is really what separates us from other organizations. Typically, you’d make a donation, feel good about it, and would be left hoping that it goes to a good cause. We aimed to eliminate that by bringing these videos to our community as undeniable proof they are making a difference.

I am most proud of the fact that even though our community is 200+ strong ($200+ per month in donations), we have been able to make so many people smile and have really made a lasting impact for many organizations. One of our very first donations was a medical supplies kit for Emergency Medical Veterans Response, who provide veterans the ability to gain experience as a first responder. One month later, the supplies kit we donated was used to save a gentlemen’s life who was suffering from a heat stroke at a Memorial Day event. We were able to save someone’s life, all from a measly $1 donation from each of our members. If that’s not having a positive impact on the community, I don’t know what is.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I probably would have partnered with someone who has built businesses before. Perhaps someone with a background in marketing. Our biggest challenge is generating new members, particularly while our community is so small. We’re very limited in what we are able to do with only a few hundred dollars each month. We believe getting to 1-5k members ($1k-$5k donations each month), we would break out from the early adopter phase and start scaling much faster. A few thousands dollars can really make a big difference.

Our goal is to build our community to 400k+, so we would have $400k+ to donate each month. At that point, we could build housing, eliminate debt, save local companies who have found themselves in hard times and so much more. From there, we would start a new community in another state to continue down the path of keeping a communities donations local. Thinking about that really gets me excited.

Pricing:

• Collective Change members pay $15/year
• $12 of those dollars are donated ($1 each month)
• $3 of those dollars help us keep the lights on

Contact Info:

• Website: www.collectivechange.com
• Phone: 602.571.1925
• Email: evan@collectivechange.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/collectivechange
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ourcollectivechange

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