2024 Most Influential Women: Stephanie Bottorf

Stephanie Bottorf recognizes the importance of not only reaching the highest possible achievement, but in sharing that knowledge with others. After exploring different leadership roles during her years as a student at Drury University, she moved into the not-for-profit world, where she blossomed into not only a leader, but an influencer. It’s an outlet that allowed her to share her knowledge with others and guide them.

Bottorf began her career in 1998 at the nonprofit Ozarks Area Community Action Corp., quickly being promoted to area supervisor. While at OACAC, she says she gained experience in grant writing and fundraising, skills that would motivate her to pursue it as a full-time career, becoming the development director at The Arc of the Ozarks in 2004.

“I tripled the amount of donations coming into the organization,” Bottorf says.

She joined the Association for Fundraising Professionals, where she was appointed as Fall Conference chair, Philanthropy Day committee member, secretary and president.

Following her tenure at The Arc of the Ozarks, she was development director for the Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks, then moved to a role in planned giving at The Salvation Army, where she is currently senior director of gift and estate planning.

“Our department went from raising $2.3 million before my leadership in fiscal year 2022 to $7.6 million in fiscal year 2023,” Bottorf says. “With two months left in fiscal year 2024, we have already raised over $7.2 million.”

Bottorf also has had the opportunity to be a part of several civic initiatives, but she says her proudest civic accomplishment is one that she holds especially dear to her heart.

When Bottorf’s oldest son was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2014, friends and family gifted him a beanie to help with the adjustment of having scarring and a shaved head.

Bottorf was inspired to do the same for other children going through cancer, and she sent a care package of beanies to a little boy in Illinois who found out about his brain tumor on Christmas Day of that year.

“That February for my son’s birthday, we asked friends and family to donate beanies instead of presents. We wanted to give his neurosurgeon 200 beanies so that everyone he operated on the next year could have a beanie to take home,” says Bottorf. “We received over 1,000 beanies.”

Through that experience, her nonprofit The Beanie Brigade was born.

“I am proud of the impact that my time at various organizations has had in our community,” she says. “However, it is the individual stories that mean the most to me.”