Meet BJ Rottinghaus

We were lucky to catch up with BJ Rottinghaus recently and have shared our conversation below.

BJ, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.

My motivation for starting Y’alloween stems from many different factors. First, and most important, I love to help people. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve found amazing joy in helping others. Just doing a simple favor was enough for me to have a great rest of the day. Running Y’alloween is a unique opportunity would allow me to do that at the highest level, and help people with real need. People struggling with childcare or domestic violence need help, and we can provide them an amazing night through the magic of Halloween. The idea that my ideas could uplift people and organizations to make a difference in the community is incredibly motivating.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am the founder of Y’alloween. My family and I have always seen the lack of charitable attention about Halloween, so we started our charity in 2021, during the end of the pandemic. Y’alloween brings costumes to kids in need, and we have partnered with many organizations that have allowed us to grow massively over the short period of time. We started in 2021 with the Houston Area Women’s Center, and over time have added 6 more organizations in Houston, Austin, and now Bryan/College Station. Overall, we’ve given over 1,000 costumes to our partners and raised more than 40,000 dollars. Our fundraising has come from people in the community, most of whom learned about Y’alloween thanks to local news attention. Thanks to all the support from the community, my family, and my friends, Y’alloween is one of the fastest-growing Halloween charities in Texas and able to help hundreds of kids have a happy Halloween!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities that were most impactful for me was my grit, my fearlessness, and my confidence. Grit, resilience, or determination all could’ve been my first quality, and it was impactful because I never gave in to the doubts that I had starting Y’alloween. At the start, we weren’t sure if we would raise any money at all, and be able to help our partners. But our grit kept us going. In the same vein is our fearlessness: we knew that we weren’t always going to get a yes, especially from a big company, but just asking gives us a chance. Finally, confidence is king when creating. If you don’t believe that the product you are producing is great, than you won’t be able to sell it, and convince people to partner with you. By being confident in our model and in our execution, we were able to convince multiple partners and companies to partner with us, and that has made a hug impact for us.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

We are looking for three types of partners. First, we are always looking for more nonprofit organizations that need costumes that we can work with. Any organization that takes care of kids in need, we are more than happy to sit down and talk to about getting them costumes. Second, businesses that are kind enough to give donations. We do a lot of different types of donations, including drives, cash, and sponsorships. We are always looking for more assistance, and are always happy to meet with companies. Last, we are looking for ambassadors, high schoolers or college students looking to boost their resumes with a nonprofit item. We are looking for people who love Halloween, are driven, and are responsible. Contact us at [email protected] if you are interested!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yalloween.org
• Instagram: @yalloweentx
• Facebook: @yalloweentx
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/y-alloween/?viewAsMember=true
• Twitter: @yalloweentx