shenandoah // digital campaigns

Role: creative lead, copywriter, graphic designer, editor

Since March 2020, I led the marketing and communications efforts for a small but mighty nonprofit called the Shenandoah National Park Trust.

Let’s just say, as a nonprofit supporting an entire national park, there are a lot of moving parts. This became a great opportunity for storytelling and sharing unique content on social channels that the actual federal agency otherwise couldn’t.

i.e. we could be a hell of a lot more creative.

Below are a few digital and social media campaigns that stood out from what turned out to be an incredibly challenging year (2020) for everyone. (honestly, we don’t thank Zoom enough. So, thanks Zoom!)

Ongoing work included:

• Envisioning, designing, and implementing an editorial and social calendar for each season

• Stitching together assets, photographs, and organizing social takeovers with ambassadors

• Copy for social posts and writing blog content associated with posts

• Hosting virtual events on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook Live

Like everywhere, COVID-19 struck and the word “pivot” had pervaded our vernacular. For non-profits, it mean’t we couldn’t see our donors in Shenandoah when it shut down, and less so during the year when restrictions were in place. No events, no nothing.

To keep our audiences engaged, I came up with a week-long digital pop-up that helped our audience connect to Shenandoah when they couldn’t be. This involved a number of incredibly talented artists, musicians who donated their time and Zoom feeds to showcase the intersection of art and the park.

Here are a few visuals, but to get the full scope, click on this link.

Our work didn’t come to a full stop with the pandemic. Shenandoah’s operations never quite slowed that summer. In fact, the park saw record numbers of folks needing some recluse in the outdoors. Throughout the year, a diverse coalition of national and state organizations, including the Shenandoah National Park Trust, worked hard to pass the Great American Outdoors Act.

This historic piece of legislation is considered to be the government’s most significant investment in outdoor conservation in decades.

Here were a few celebratory visuals for the books.

One of our revenue sharing partners was … drumroll please … the DMV!

I know, don’t freak out.

We received a small chunk of change for every speciality Shenandoah license plate sold. So I crafted these short commercial-like videos and posted them all over social every month.

We ended up raising 24% more in 2020 due to these video releases.

 National Park Week is a big deal. It happens every April, at every national park site, and is full of in-park activities, ranger programs, specialty hikes, and more.

Alas, while still under federal restrictions, the park didn’t do too much other than a few virtual wildflower hikes. Still neat!

With a little more freedom, I was able to create over a week of events, engaging blog content, and social media takeovers. Here are a few visuals and highlights from the week (revisit the week, here).

I also busted out my camera every now and then to do portrait sessions and short films. Here’s an example of a short film I edited for a summer program with an amazing youth education program called Groundwork RVA.

This is a short film about black bears which I fully produced, filmed and edited. And no, we didn’t see any bears that day. Only a few raccoon paw prints on dumpsters, which was still very exciting.

Ah, yes … a few more things I managed:

• Organizing National Park Week + virtual fundraisers like BANFF Film Festival

• Designing and writing all outgoing fundraising collateral, including digital and print

• Placing dozens of stories in endemic publications

• Email marketing campaigns

• Public relations lead - includes writing press releases for local and national media

• Website curation - copy, design, all the fun maintenance