Challenge: Ahead of a broader brand and program relaunch, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy needed to reassess how its Membership and Leadership Donor programs worked together to support long-term growth. The Conservancy had a strong base of members and donors, but the programs were positioned as parallel tracks, resulting in fragmented positioning. While benefits were clearly understood on a functional level, they lacked emotional motivation, making it difficult for supporters to understand how, or why, to deepen their involvement.

Approach: I led a positioning strategy and messaging initiative grounded in existing research and peer analysis, with a focus on clarity, emotional connection, and supporter progression. Throughout the project, the emphasis remained on creating a strategy that could scale, from messaging and digital structure to future campaign development.

The work included:

• Synthesizing complex internal research into clear, actionable insights

• Designing a unified supporter-to-leader journey framework

• Developing positioning and messaging pillars that ladder from “belonging” to “leadership”

• Translating strategy into practical website and UX concepts to guide future execution

• Crafting a highly visual strategy deliverable to inspire and guide creative execution during relaunch

Impact: The final strategy was presented to senior leadership, including development and communications executives, and is now serving as a strategic foundation for upcoming relaunch efforts. The work unified Membership and Leadership Donor programs under a single, cohesive narrative; established a clear positioning framework and program architecture (including naming and tier structure) to guide progression from participation to leadership, and clarified how benefits and impact are articulated at each level. Together, these recommendations provided leadership with a durable roadmap for acquisition, retention, and supporter growth, designed to translate seamlessly into messaging, program structure, and the digital experience.