“Do you want to hold babies?”

It was a simple headline for a listing on the VolunteerMatch website, but it caught the eye of Donna Raucher, CEO of Proforma GPS (asi/490714). “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m down for that,’” she recalls.

Donna Raucher with her husband, Steve.

Since 2018, Raucher has been volunteering every Monday at Living Grace Homes, a Las Vegas-based charity that offers transitional housing and social services for young mothers. According to its website, the nonprofit was founded in 2007 to provide food, shelter, transportation, guidance and education to young, pregnant, homeless women between the ages of 14 and 24. In 2014, the organization expanded its mission to help young moms without high school diplomas gain parenting skills while they complete school and get a job. The organization also helps young mothers who are survivors of sex trafficking.

During her volunteer hours, Raucher says she helps with back-office work but also has plenty of interaction with the women in the shelter, chatting with them about their challenges and supervising them as they learn essential skills, like cooking dinner. And, of course, Raucher enjoys plenty of that promised baby-holding time – keeping an eye on children so their moms can do things like take care of laundry and other chores.

“It’s been really satisfying to know that you’re helping these girls put their lives back together again,” Raucher says. “I consider volunteering a very selfish thing. It’s as much for me as for the people I serve. I love knowing that I can make a difference in somebody’s life.”

“I love knowing that I can make a difference in somebody’s life.”– Donna Raucher, Proforma GPS

In addition to Raucher volunteering her time, she and the team at Proforma GPS, which specializes in premium products for the casino industry, donate extra items from their warehouse – things like bedding and kitchenware – to the women as they graduate from the program and move out on their own. Raucher has forged strong bonds with many of the women who go through Living Grace Home’s programming and is still in touch with quite a few.

Volunteerism has been a strong thread throughout Raucher’s life. Her first exposure to volunteering on a regular basis was when her children were young and she would help out in their school. She’s also tutored adults learning English and supported nonprofits including Junior Achievement, which inspires and prepares young people for success, and the Goodie Two Shoes Foundation, which provides disadvantaged children and those in crisis with new shoes and socks. In addition, Proforma GPS makes significant annual donations to the Las Vegas chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Raucher, who has two dogs of her own and frequently watches her son’s dogs, says she’s also a “sucker for animal charities.”

Raucher hangs out with some of her former students.

“I really want to be a pet foster home and work in animal rescues, but I think I would probably fail at it every time,” she jokes.

Raucher says she took “a very scenic route” to join the promotional products industry. She started working in advertising and public relations after college, but soon realized she wanted to teach, so she put herself through school while working, then spent 15 years as a teacher. Eventually, she decided to join her husband, Steve, in promo, becoming CEO of Proforma GPS in 2016. She says, “I only promised him a year and said if I miss teaching, I’m going back. Here I am seven years later.”

High school sweethearts, Raucher and her husband have been together for 40 years and married for 35. At their 18-person company, Raucher says she’s in charge of operations, facilities and “everything except for sales,” which is Steve’s purview. “I stay in my lane, and he stays in his,” she adds. “That’s probably why it works.”