Debra McKnight Higgins & Associates: Marketing & Fundraising for Non-Profits
portfolio highlights
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Project Management: Websites & Branding

MAC HomeEAH HomeUpgrading a website or creating a new web presence can be a daunting challenge. McKnight Higgins & Associates provides services that include website branding and messaging, staff and constituent interviews, content architecture and writing, photography and image selection, web designer sourcing and more.

Project Management: Marketing Collateral & Messaging

EBHO Guidebook Cover 2010LISC ARMcKnight Higgins manages teams of nonprofit staff, graphic designers, photographers, copy editors and more to produce marketing collateral like this 25-year anniversary report (Local Initiatives Support Coalition) and 52-page Guidebook to Affordable Housing (East Bay Housing Organizations).

McKnight Higgins also creates key messages and content.

Project Management: Finding Marin: Stories of Home

Finding Marin: Stories of HomeFinding Marin: Stories of HomeMcKnight Higgins helped address the issue of affordable housing as project manager of Finding Marin: Stories of Home – a 2 year project with the Marin Arts Council (in partnership with the California Council for the Humanities and the Marin Community Foundation) that culminated in an exhibit, a book and a DVD, and used the arts – poetry, film, visual art, oral history, storytelling – to bring over 50 nonprofit partner agencies and over 70 residents of Marin from all walks of life together with oral historians, artists and other community members to explore, define,and celebrate the diverse meanings of home for people from all backgrounds, walks of life and economic levels in Marin County.

Direct Mail & E-Appeals: New Donor Acquisition & Targeted Messaging

Polly Klass foundationPolly Klass FoundationMcKnight Higgins worked with the Polly Klaas Foundation to grow their donor base from 100 to over 2000 donors in a three year time period by testing mailing lists and various appeal strategies in multiple mailings. McKnight Higgins has conducted successful mail and e-appeal campaigns for Marin County School Volunteers, DrawBridge, Marin Arts Council, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Whistlestop, EAH Housing, California Film Institute and others.

Fundraising Assessment: The Dance Palace

Dance PalaceMcKnight Higgins & Associates conducted an assessment of the fundraising potential of The Dance Palace to create a $600,000 Legacy Fund. We conducted community and donor interviews and donor base research to provide strategies, recommendations, and a board report. The consultancy was successful in motivating and inspiring the board to take on this challenge.

Grassroots Fundraising: Campaign to Save Bahia

Marin Audubon Society & Marin Bayland AdvocatesMarin Audubon Society & Marin Bayland Advocates
Grassroots fundraising under the direction of McKnight Higgins over a nine-month period brought in $1M in private matching funds to complete the $15.8 million dollar purchase of the Bahia property in Novato, California. We managed the direct mail, major donor, proposal writing, collateral and public relations efforts.