Building a B2B Content Strategy for Comic Relief US

At Comic Relief US, I developed a B2B content strategy designed to generate and nurture leads among mission-aligned corporate partners, moving the organization beyond traditional fundraising asks toward a more sophisticated, content-led approach to brand sponsorship and co-funding.

At the center of the strategy was a sizzle asset that did double duty: sharp enough to anchor a paid LinkedIn campaign targeting prospective partners, and polished enough to work in boardroom presentations and branded sales materials. LinkedIn was the primary channel — chosen deliberately to reach decision-makers where they were already engaging with purpose-driven content — but the ecosystem was designed to pull audiences through to the full breadth of Comic Relief US’s content, partnerships, and impact work.

Alongside this, I developed a content series under the Partnering for Purpose banner, collaborating with purpose-driven organizations to create co-branded editorial that gave prospective and existing partners a clear view of what meaningful collaboration with Comic Relief US looked like in practice.

Together these assets laid a strong strategic foundation for Comic Relief US’s partnership development — creating the tools, content, and channels needed to generate leads and keep the right brands engaged at the right level.

Read more: Streaming Success Meets Social Impact

Watch the sizzle

Launching the 2023 Audacious Project Cohort: From Strategy to the TED Stage

In 2023, The Audacious Project announced its most ambitious cohort to date — ten bold ideas backed by over one billion dollars in philanthropic commitments from funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Emerson Collective, and MacKenzie Scott.

I led the communications, marketing, and PR strategy for the cohort launch, coordinating across a complex web of stakeholders including donors, grantee partners, internal TED teams, and media, to bring ten very different stories to the world simultaneously and with impact.

The launch was underpinned by a significant digital overhaul completed in the months prior — a full redesign of the Audacious Project website and social presence that created a stronger, more cohesive platform from which to tell these stories (check it out here). This groundwork meant that when the cohort went public, every channel, from the website to social media, was built to carry the weight of the moment and convert attention into deeper engagement with each grantee’s work.

Central to the launch was a sizzle video presented live on the TED stage, which I developed and directed. Drawing on interviews, archival footage, motion graphics, and music, the film introduced ten distinct, multi-million dollar ideas as a single, cohesive narrative. The reaction in the room was unexpected and electric — a reminder of just how powerful the right combination of visuals, music, and storytelling can be, even in a brief interstitial format.

Every cohort I launched during my time at TED was special in its own right, but this one holds a particular place for me creatively. It required deep collaboration with grantee partners, careful editorial judgment, and the ability to hold a creative vision steady across a high-pressure production timeline. The cohesion and quality of what we delivered as a team still stands out to me as some of my best work.

The launch marked a significant milestone in the initiative’s five-year history, generating our largest global media coverage to date and reinforcing The Audacious Project’s position as one of the most ambitious collaborative funding initiatives in philanthropy.

A new home for The Audacious Project!

Recently I spearheaded the launch of two new sites, the redesign of the Audacious Project website, and the first digital iteration of our annual report.

Collaborating on this project with the talented team at Whiteboard was such fun and it’s been a thrill to have a beautiful new home for the initiative to showcase stories about so many important issues I care about.

Check out Whiteboard’s case study on the project.

We built a chatbot!

girls phones

It’s been a busy few months at Girl Effect for me. I got promoted (yay me) and now lead content strategy across the organization. We also rolled out the first social campaign for the Nutrition International project and most exciting we launched my passion project for the last few months Big Sis, Girl Effect’s first ever chatbot!

Big Sis uses guided conversation to answer girls’ questions about sexual health. Girls are guided through entertaining, informative content with quizzes (you know I had to have quizzes), to test their knowledge on sex, sexuality, contraception, and relationships.

Learn more about the iterative User Centered Design process we employed to build Big Sis here.

We recently showcased our pioneering girl to experts at the Global Digital Health Forum in Washington DC. The forum is the leading networking event for global public and digital health experts from more than 100 countries. 

Launching Girl Effect’s first global brand, Springster

facebook-header-3.2e16d0ba.fill-790x400After 2 and half years as the digital content mama on Girl Effect Mobile (GEM) working with the amazing media non-profit Girl Effect, I’m excited to finally be able to reveal our new rebrand as global girls digital brand Springster!

We traveled to 5 countries to talk to girls about what they wanted from GEM and girls told us they wanted to be part of something, as well as support and celebrate each other. We listened and responded with Springster, a brand that aims to build a community-focused identity and attitude, celebrating the diverse, inspirational and convention-defying experiences of all girls.

The branding is beautiful and it was an amazing collaborating with the incredible team at Design Studio in London. But it’s not just our new illustrations (all done by an amazing female team we handpicked from almost every corner of the world) and fun UX that made this an amazing project for me, it was seeing how we’ve grown and evolved and learned with girls to bring them an even better version of our platforms.  I have to give us all a pat on the back… we did good!

You can learn more about Springster in our factsheet

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Springster series Hara Huru Dara featured at YoutubeFest

fanfestWe hooked up with Youtube to create a ten-episode web series for Springster Indonesia!

The show adapted some of our most popular on-site content into a fun, conversational format covering everything from a takedown of catcalling culture to tips on preparing for job interviews, to a light-hearted deconstruction of harmful period myths.

The series was hosted by an inspiring group of young female influencers including actress and pop sensation Sheryl Sheinafia.

Thanks to our incredible Indonesian creative team Percolate Galatic we were able to secure some of Asia’s coolest creative talent including award-winning director and filmmaker Lucky Kuswandi, and we even scored a jingle by rising 18-year-old Indonesian singer-songwriter Heidi Nasution!

 

Digital content for financial literacy

I worked on a really cool Girl Effect project with Save the Children in Indonesia recently.

As lead content strategist on the Dooit app, a financial literacy tool targeted at girls in school between 16-18 years old.

We wanted to adapt the successful Save the Children’s Skills to Success program curriculum into a fun mobile-friendly experience for girls.

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Using User Centered Design we worked with girls to design a product and content that would help them save money and reach their financial goals.

Understanding the constraints of low-income girls for whom banks are inaccessible or untrusted, it made sense to create a personal money mentor. Dooit guides girls in setting financial goals and then helps them to track savings.

Plus, it wouldn’t be a Khwezi content strategy for girls without fun quizzes, and games.  Dooit encourages and supports girls while helping them to shift behaviors and improve their financial literacy.

Dooit .jpg

Editor in Chief of Seventeen

011011SEM006Under my editorship seventeen South Africa saw exciting growth and changes…this is the highlights package…

Awards

2010

WINNER: AdMag Award Best International Title

SILVER: AdMag Award in the Youth Culture Category

GOLD: AdMag Award Innovative Digital Publishing Category

2009

WINNER: PICA Best Consumer Title International General Interest

HIGHLY COMMENDED: PICA Consumer Publishing Excellence Online Solution

HIGHLY COMMENDED: PICA Consumer Publishing Excellence Supplements: Deluxe in seventeen

2008

HIGHLY COMMENDED: PICA Best Consumer Title International General Interest

We launched a pop-up radio station for the Oscar Pistorius trial

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I love working on projects that raise the game in innovation so I couldn’t be prouder of the online team’s contribution to Primedia’s groundbreaking coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial, #OscarExtra, an online pop-up radio station running for the duration of the trial.

The idea came to us a way to run trial audio within all 4 of our station’s radio station apps and thanks to our team’s creative powers it quickly turned into an amazing full-service 12hr radio station. Sounds simple right? You optimize on the biggest media event of the year by providing dedicated coverage without cannibalizing on your regular radio programming, well yes… and no.

The operation of a live feed from the courtroom, a board operator, and a great radio presenter who did call-ins and commentary was pretty standard by radio standards and the online side of setting up a dedicated stream and quick turn around podcasts was one we already had waxed.  However, convincing all the station heads that it was better to do this cool groundbreaking content thing online only turned out to be the most challenging task of all.

You have to understand this in an environment where podcasts are still relatively new to our audience it looked like this massive risk…

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It’s a good thing I’m charming because our ‘launch it now and apologise later’ strategy… well, it could have gone sideways. But it didn’t because as it turned out radio listeners like to listen to things online too, especially when at work and the internet is easily accessible. Oscar Extra was one of our most popular online projects of the year with streams surpassing any of the numbers we had ever done in online audio before!

It was also really exciting to see the attention it got from the industry who thought it was groundbreaking too. 

UPDATE: #OscarExtra nominated for Bookmarks in the Integrated Multi-platform campaign category 

I love it when a calculated risk pays off!