Nonprofits
Fractional marketing leadership for nonprofits
Most nonprofits I work with already have marketing running. It lives in development, in communications, in volunteer programs and sometimes in advocacy, each run by people who know their work well and rarely see what the other teams are doing. Donors, volunteers and funders experience all of it as one organization. The job I take on is making that true from the inside as well.
I work with small and mid-size nonprofits as a fractional CMO: senior marketing leadership for part of the week, accountable for how the pieces fit, without the cost of a full-time executive the budget can’t carry.
Where I start: an audit and a debrief
Nonprofits are complicated organizations, and most of them weren’t built by people who think of themselves as marketers. So I usually start with a short audit at a reduced price. I look at what each team is sending, to whom and how often. I look at where the systems underneath (donor database, email, website, volunteer tools) connect or don’t, and at what a donor or volunteer sees when they look at the organization from the outside.
The debrief is a working session with the executive director and whoever else leads the functions involved. It covers what I found and what I’d change first. Some organizations take the findings and run with them. Others ask me to stay on and lead the work, which is where an ongoing engagement begins.
What I bring from inside the sector
I have worked in and around the sector since 2004, when I was a program manager at the Council for a Community of Democracies, and I later handled marketing communications at the World Affairs Council in Seattle. From August 2014 to December 2016 I was Marketing Communications Manager at Northwest Harvest, a statewide food bank. That was a full-time role, years before Cedar Collaborative, and in practice it meant bringing fundraising, communications, volunteer engagement and advocacy into one effort. Over that period donor acquisition costs dropped by roughly 35%, and repeat donors grew by more than 10% a year.
I have also sat on the other side of the table. I serve on the board of The Urbanist, a Seattle nonprofit publication, and I have served on the board of FIUTS, which works with international students at Seattle-area colleges and universities, and on Seattle Opera’s Bravo! Young Professionals board. That puts me in the board conversations about audience and about what an organization is asking of its supporters.
In the sector now
I currently work with two practices that serve the sector: Third Sector Company, which has placed interim executives with nonprofits since 2002, and Nancy Bacon, who designs learning programs for nonprofit leaders, associations and foundations. In 2026 I also attended the Central Washington Nonprofit Network’s conference. I have written about the sector in Breaking the silos and in From panic to purpose, which covers the Northwest Harvest years.
Interim and transition leadership
When a communications director or development lead leaves, the gap usually lands on an executive director who is already stretched. I take on interim and transition work as well: holding the marketing function steady and leaving a clear brief for whoever is hired next.
How engagements work
Nonprofits get a reduced rate. After the audit, an engagement runs month to month with 15 business days’ notice either way, so the organization can scale it up for a campaign season or pause it when the budget tightens. I lead the work myself. When outside help is needed (a designer or a developer, say), it reports to me, so there is one point of accountability.
Questions nonprofits ask
What does a fractional CMO do for a nonprofit?
A fractional CMO leads marketing across the whole organization for part of the week. That covers positioning, donor and volunteer communication, channel priorities, and the systems behind them, and it means one person is accountable for how those pieces fit together.
How is that different from an interim executive director?
An interim executive director fills a vacancy at the top of the organization. A fractional CMO works alongside a sitting executive director and leads one function across the teams that share it. I wrote more about the distinction in Breaking the silos.
What does it cost?
I don’t publish a rate card, because scope varies widely between a two-person development office and a statewide organization. Nonprofits get a reduced rate, and the audit is priced so a small organization can afford it before committing to anything longer.
What size nonprofit do you work with?
Small and mid-size organizations are where I do my best work: large enough to have several functions pulling in different directions, small enough that one senior person can change how they fit together.