My brain is wired for research. If you’re familiar with StrengthFinder, one of my main strengths is Input. If you’re not, this means I am inquisitive and naturally collect things like facts and information. Most recently, at WolfBrown, I used my propensity for research on a variety of evaluation, planning, and applied market research projects. I picked these projects as they highlight the variety of work I had the chance to work on:

• The University Musical Society: To test the philanthropic case for supporting renegade and adventurous programs, I conducted several focus groups and interviews.

• Detroit Harmony: In order to create an implementation plan for a citywide music education initiative, I conducted a variety of research and planning work over a multi-year period.

• The Audience Outlook Monitor Covid-19 Study: Over the first three years of the pandemic, I predominately worked on this applied market research study. I was responsible for maintaining all of the client dashboards. These dashboards enabled arts organizations to visually interpret their survey data and helped them better understand their audiences’ attitudes about the arts during Covid-19.

Event coordination and facilitation have been some of the most rewarding work I have done to date. I’ve grouped them together because both are about fostering connection and creating community. And as it turns out, not only do I really love bringing people together, but I am actually quite good at it. Go figure. Here are a few of the organizations I have either managed events or facilitated trainings for:

• Pages Bookshop, Events: Over the four years I worked as a bookseller and the event manager, I hosted over 100 events - both on and offsite. The biggest event had over 300 people in attendance. The bookshop’s yearly sales increased by 30% as a result of the events I organized and hosted.

• Feet in 2 Worlds, Journalism Workshop: During the summer of 2018, I coordinated and managed all aspects of Fi2w’s Food Journalism Workshop hosted at the Allied Media Conference. Through an online social media campaign, I successfully recruited over 100 journalists to apply for this competitive workshop. During this two-day event, I oversaw the day of planning and execution of this 40-person workshop.

• Civilla, Writing Workshop: Upon request, I facilitated a half-day writing workshop called “Writing from a Place of Courage” for the entire Civilla staff. In addition to divulging all of my favorite writing tips and tricks, I helped this team feel more comfortable and confident writing. How do I know this? Because I continue to hear from folks about how much they got out of this workshop.

I honestly never meant to become a freelance writer. I kind of fell into it. I began pitching pieces and the rest is history. Since taking the plunge, I have written an op-ed about the importance of bookstores, a feature about a documentary that takes in a remarkable city that is only 2 square miles, and several profiles of Detroit leaders and community members.

In the summer of 2020, I was asked by one of Civilla’s co-founders to write a 52-page report on Project Cohere, a pilot that demonstrated how to remove significant barriers to families enrolling in the Michigan Energy Assistance Program (MEAP).

Most of what I know about websites and content marketing comes from years working at Element5…and growing up with the internet.

While I have since worked on other website projects, the examples listed are from my time at this agency. Although the website projects I worked on were often very different, for all of them I focused on crafting content that was clear, simple, and accessible. Writing the copy for these three websites I found particularly rewarding:

• Community Connections for Independent Living: To ensure we captured CCFL’s work accurately and portrayed their patients with dignity, I conducted extensive interviews with their leadership, staff members, and patients. This enabled me to create copy that truly captured their remarkable work and stories.

• Goodwill of Greater Detroit: Accessibility and plain language were the top priorities for Goodwill. To achieve this, I worked closely with our UX designer on the wireframes and re-wrote all of the website content to be at a 4th-grade reading level.

• Proactive IT: In order to capture their quirky do-right-by-the-customer brand and voice, I collaborated with the founder to craft SEO-friendly copy that captured the company’s personality.