About Scot Chisholm

I’m Scot, multi-time founder, investor and industrial engineer by trade. Here’s a bit about me. Back in the day, I started a company called Classy, a SaaS platform that’s used by over 10,000 nonprofits to raise money and manage their fundraising. I served as the company’s CEO from inception through 2021, then moved to Executive Chairman. In 2022 we were acquired by GoFundMe, and together the companies have raised over $30 billion for individual and nonprofit causes.

But Classy didn’t start off as a software company. It was originally a fundraiser for cancer research, because my mom had cancer when I was growing up. We settled on a pub crawl (we were 24 yrs old!) and named the event “Stay Classy” because the movie Anchroman, with Will Ferrell, happened to be on in our apartment. That one event turned into dozens of fundraisers supporting various causes and getting young people involved around San Diego. In 2011 we launched Classy, the software platform, for any nonprofit to use, after building the first version for our own fundraising events. Eleven years later, with thousands of customers, a team of 250+ and billions of dollars raised, we sold the company to GoFundMe to create the largest giving platform in the world.

Since then I’ve transitioned from the day-to-day and started several new projects (outlined below), including Highland — a private community for high potential founders — and Haskill Creek — a reinvention of the traditional drug store. And I’ve been working hard on our nonprofit, Save Farmland, which is working to protect farmland from over-development. I invest out of a family fund we call Tall Timbers Holding Company, which has a portfolio of startup investments, wholly owned businesses and property/land. On the investing side, I’ve made over 20 investments in startups, ranging from software (CaseText, acquired for $650M), to crypto (Ripple), to sports (Albion Soccer Club). At the end of the day, I love partnering with other founders to support their growth. So, hopefully I’ll be able to do more investing in the future.

On the personal side, my family moved to Whitefish, Montana in 2020, after falling in love with the pure beauty of the place. It’s an awesome town to raise kids and our days are filled with outdoor adventure and lots of kids sports. I personally grew up in a town called Hingham, Massachusetts, about 20 minutes outside of Boston on the way to Cape Cod. So yes, I have a love for all Boston sports teams.

And what seems like forever ago, I went to Umass, Amherst, where I got my Industrial Engineering & Operations Research degree. After school I worked at Booz Allen Hamilton in San Diego and helped start the Lean Six Sigma practice at the firm. So a lot of my roots are in operations, systems and process improvement — which really guided my thinking around leadership, management and scaling companies later on in life.

Hopefully you find my content helpful in whatever leadership or entrepreneurial journey you’re on. You can join my free newsletter here, or follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram and X. And of course, if you’re a founder, consider applying to my community Highland, where I teach all of these topics on a much deeper level.

I’m looking forward to staying connected and supporting your journey in whatever way possible!