Strategic Communications: Propel Philanthropy  

I partnered with Propel Philanthropy to support an urgent fundraising effort in collaboration with GivingTuesday, designed to mobilize rapid, large-scale philanthropic engagement across the social impact sector.

Challenge

GivingTuesday needed to secure and deploy a significant pool of funds for a major media campaign to activate donors worldwide during a critical giving season. The timeline was tight, the team small, and the goal ambitious: to catalyze a movement capable of reaching tens of millions of people and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in donations.

Approach

I supported the effort as a strategic partner focused on clarity, coordination, and communication systems, ensuring the campaign could operate with focus and coherence despite its urgency.

Key contributions included:

• Designing an integrated outreach system: Developed a simple but effective CRM to manage partner and funder engagement, enabling targeted and timely communications.

• Strategic messaging & storytelling: Crafted campaign language and website copy that aligned the diverse stakeholders around a shared purpose, balancing urgency with credibility.

• Brand and visual coherence: Created the campaign’s refreshed logo and visual identity, helping present a unified, professional image across channels.

• Network activation: Led targeted outreach to my professional network via LinkedIn and email, amplifying the campaign’s reach to potential high-leverage contributors.

• Communications alignment: Collaborated on donor communications and team emails to ensure consistent tone and messaging throughout the fundraising effort.

Outcome

The campaign exceeded its target, raising $350,000 in committed funds, more than $250,000 above the initial baseline. This enabled GivingTuesday to launch a large-scale media campaign projected to reach tens of millions of people globally and unlock tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in giving across the sector.

Beyond the financial impact, the effort demonstrated how a nimble, network-based approach can mobilize significant resources quickly when clear systems and messaging are in place.