GLOBAL ANNUAL REPORTS
As a writer on TNC’s global marketing team, I leveraged my previous donor communications experience to lead the organization’s Global Annual Report project. I concepted, outline, wrote, edited, developed webpages for, and launched TNC’s 2023, 2024 and 2025 reports, available online and mailed to 3,000 of TNC’s highest-priority donors.
This project is a real exercise in truly global storytelling—of finding inspiring updates from the calendar year, yes, but also showing how each success fits into the larger organizational narrative: how milestones in Tanzania are informed by science in Indonesia, how one organization can affect change in so many places, alongside so many people.
donor comms
As TNC in Illinois’ donor communications manager, I wrote tailored narratives that tied donor passion to organizational need. Depending on the donor, proposals ranged from highly technical to broadly inspiring, with the goal of generating flexible revenue while still reflecting specific organizational priorities.
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While on the TNC Illinois development team, I saw a need for an inspiring end-of-year report and proposal template to help fundraisers steward major donors, anticipate end-of-year reporting and prepare for end-of-year solicitations. This template inspired several major end-of-year gifts and helped streamline the reporting process.
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By telling the story of fresh water across the Midwest, from the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes, I wrote proposals that helped raise the largest gift in the Illinois chapter’s history. This freshwater proposal inspired our donor to continue her transformational giving.
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Working in collaboration with conservation staff, scientists, marketing and our global Development team, I developed a TNC Illinois campaign case for support that clarified the unique role that the state and its chapter played in conservation and climate. This document went on to inform fundraising strategy and underpin key donor stewardship documents like the Illinois annual report.
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This technical concept note on policy and market levers for freshwater conservation and regenerative agriculture represents the other end of the storytelling spectrum. My role as a donor communications manager required a flexible and specific approach tailored to donor preference—in this case, for a highly engaged and strategic donor who wanted to see exactly how her commitment would influence scale.