Design for America Marketing & Communications: Sharing the Story of a Nonprofit's Impact & Success

2017 - 2018

marketing

communications

events

Intro

When I first started at Design for America, I immediately recognized an opportunity to  reinvent our marketing initiatives and improve our media presence.

Like many nonprofits, the current approach to communications was, “whoever has the time." Along with managing 4 media interns throughout the year, I made it my mission to build out a robust, intentional, and consistent marketing strategy; formalizing timelines, processes, and expectations to meet the organization's marketing needs.

My focus was on everything that you hear, see, or read about DFA, ensuring each communication was relevant, concise, and aligned with our mission.

Read more about my time at DFA here.

Challenge
Create a strategic approach to marketing and storytelling for a nonprofit design organization
My Role
Strategy, design, & implementation of the organization's blog, newsletters, social media, printed materials, physical displays, videos, photography, & more
Outcome
A streamlined approach and cohesive system of communications with target audiences and diversified mediums

Digital Content

Revamping an organization's entire media presence is quite an undertaking. My efforts included:

  • Developing a new editorial process for the DFA blog, maintaining a regular cadence and doubling our output of 23 blogs in 2016 to 44 blogs in 2017

  • Maintaining all social media platforms, expanding to Instagram and growing our following to engage with our entire student base of over 1,000

  • Coordinating weekly, monthly, and quarterly newsletter campaigns for various stakeholders & audiences like alumni, mentors, sponsors, and community partners

Check out the full list of stories I wrote for DFA here.

Events

Leadership Studio

Leadership Studio is a 5-day social impact conference that brings together 250+ students, community members, partners, entrepreneurs, alumni, and industry experts to better understand the power of empathy and design innovation.

Together with our small team, I planned and executed Leadership Studio in both 2016 & 2017, managing communications, visual & physical displays, media, and photography for the event.

A mix of photos I took at LS16 & LS17

Video by Northwestern Engineering's Marketing team

Printed Materials

National Design Awards

In 2018 DFA was invited to apply to the prestigious Smithsonian Design Museum's National Design Awards. I put together the book below to showcase DFA's widespread impact, tight-knit community, and unique approach to social innovation, and we won the award for Corporate and Institutional Achievement. Read more here.

DFA founder Liz Gerber accepting our award at the National Design Awards gala in NYC.

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