Partner Spotlight: The Scanlan Family
Meet the Scanlan Family. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Quinn and Ryan have been longtime partners of Untold, even long before the birth of their two precious children - a 2 1/2-year-old daughter named Harper and an almost 8-month-old son named Hayes.
Tell us about who you are inside and outside of work.
My husband and I both work in finance. I [Quinn] work in more of the consumer space of finance focused on technology and strategy areas. We love to spend time outside. That's our happy place. We recently got back from a ski trip, so anything outdoors, moving our body, is our happy place. Later in life, I hope to have more time to hone my skills in cooking and gardening.
How did you initially hear about Untold?
Like many donors, we were introduced to Untold through a friend and her connection to Chick-fil-A about eight years ago. At the time, we honestly didn’t have much knowledge about AIDS because it wasn't front and center in our minds. We were in our mid-20s at the time, but we were looking to connect with an organization that we could give to in a more impactful way.
What initially drew you to our work?
As I mentioned, we both work in banking and we were really impressed with the transparency of the numbers you provide, which you don’t often see in the nonprofit space. That transparency convinced us that this was a really well-run organization that we could certainly trust our dollars to, and we knew the impact which they would have because Untold does such a good job of measuring that.
And then above and beyond that, as we have come to know and appreciate the work, we are incredibly attracted to the fact that you're not there to treat the symptom but rather treat the whole person.
When it comes to philanthropy in general, which causes excite you the most?
Above all, what we’re most passionate about are efforts that are preventative and holistic. We’re drawn to organizations that are focused on empowering women and children. Most anything that you’re doing with children is going to tie into preventative efforts because your childhood is so formative to you. Untold ties into that because of how many clients are women. Kids are naturally bent to have better outcomes when they have one or both parents around.
Plus, the program offers an organic invitation to Christ. The work that you guys are doing is naturally showing God’s grace and heart for the marginalized. Through that, clients are introduced to a church community and eventually, the Holy Spirit captures their heart.
What advice would you offer to someone who is considering partnering with Untold but hasn't taken that first step?
My number one advice would be, don't just read AIDS and say, that's not for me. If we had taken that stance — which was probably our initial gut reaction — then we would’ve missed out on this work and the opportunity to serve this organization.
My second thing is, in this case, there’s a lot of benefit in judging a book by its cover. You guys have such professional and trustworthy content that you produce, I can’t say that about every organization. And finally, I think the donor relations team is phenomenal!
When you think of the future of Untold, what initiatives excite you the most?
I'm always so impressed by how forward-leaning Untold is. Both Ryan and I work in a corporate setting for this longstanding organization. And then we look at what Untold is doing as a much smaller organization with significantly fewer resources and we're astonished by your innovation.
Because of my background and probably because I’m leaning younger, I’m having more and more of an appreciation of how Africa is becoming this tech and innovation hub. I’m always probing and asking questions about what Untold is doing around technology, especially given the number of rural participants in the program. So that's probably what excites me most as a long-term potential and I love knowing that our dollars are going towards leveraging technology with this community.