After an early career as a general assignment newspaper reporter in the American South, I found myself drawn to marketing copywriting, first helping a small agency in Seattle redesign and rewrite websites for a handful of mission-based companies that included Gardenburger, Better World Books, Earthbound Farms, Choice Organic Teas, and a wind power company that sold residential windmills for backyards. (I believe that windpower startup is long gone, but I still love the idea.)

From there, I moved to writing full-time for nonprofits in the Puget Sound area, among them a biomedical trade association (I was always squeamish when watching the medical device demo videos, if I’m going to be perfectly honest) and an international organization that worked tirelessly to strengthen land rights for those living in poverty in Africa and Asia. The impact of these organizations’ missions on the public’s wellbeing was not lost on me.

I was between writing contracts when on one random morning I got a call from a friend who was working for an email marketing agency in Seattle. We chatted and they asked me to stop by. I visited the agency (there were dogs everywhere!), and, following my gut, took a job as a copywriter. I was initially skeptical about email marketing, but as it turns out, the work was really interesting. It’s here that I learned about lifecycle marketing, and where the seeds of donor journey marketing took root.

The agency I was working for had created a welcome series for new customers of a large telecom. It spanned the first 90 days of your contract. Here, the goal was to get you up and going with your new iPhone without you needing to call the help center with questions. Apparently, this is where all the profit was lost; answering questions and helping people sort out their new phone.

We did similar onboarding series for new shoppers at a national grocery chain, and then later for home buyers seeking their dream home online. The list went on and on.Each company usually had a few key things they wanted a new customer to experience, do, or know, and if that message got through, then the customer usually would be happier and stay longer as a customer.It was an interesting mix of business objectives, persuasion, and strategy.

The work was useful and I really enjoyed it, and over the past nine years I’ve found that these principles have translated seamlessly into donor journey retention strategies for nonprofits.

Today, I live in Anacortes with my wife and two very friendly dogs.

If I’m not at my desk, you can find me just outside in my woodshop, where I build wooden boats to wander around the nearby Salish Sea. I’ve built five so far, and I’m sure there’s more to come.

Boatwork is another craft altogether, but the care required in building wooden boats that I continue to trust with my own life is the same care we place into our donor journey strategies for nonprofit organizations.