Abilities

• Comfortable working on varied teams with diverse colleagues
• Significant experience in public/political work and community/significant engagement
• A service ethic focused on the well-being of others
• Application of an understanding of the dynamics of inequity and inequality in communications practices
• Employment of emotional intelligence and sensitivity in working with diverse populations
• Can serve as a storyteller to craft reflective, compelling and sophisticated messaging and narratives that are appropriate to any medium or outlet
• Creation of cogent text from multiple/ disparate sources
• Use of policies, research and established best practices to produce, change, maintain and/or implement text and campaigns
• Experience in curation and empathetic use of individual’s narratives, stories and quotes
• Coordination of multi-level, multi-media and multi-person publicity/marketing campaigns
• Can form relationships with influencers, VIPs, board members, grantors and others in a position to support causes
• Development and implementation of communications policies and goals, and ability to acquire stakeholder’s support in reaching them
• Can report and analyze metric data to use for refining of messaging, policies or goals
• Learn more about your story and social change here.
• Contact Allena here to get started.

 Experiences & Projects

• Huffington Post- Occasional blogger on justice and development topics
• Adelante Forward magazine- Managing editor for this publication with a focus on the well-being and education of Latinos in the region (current, since 2005)
• Progress/Engage Michigan- Ongoing contractual provision of talking points, news releases, media relations, social media, web content and translation in pursuit of organization’s pro-social goals, esp. immigration reform (since 2011)
• Michigan United- Ongoing communications service to this justice-oriented organization through Progress/Engage Michigan (see above, since 2011)
• Michigan Alliance of Latinos Moving Toward Advancement- Ongoing occasional provision of talking points, speech and op-eds on policy and justice topics such as the DACA program, driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants
• Michigan Association on Problem Gambling- Past intern in grant research and proposal writing
• Michigan Association on Problem Gambling- Completed several projects including re-branding and brochure production
• “Writing for Social Justice” online class- Designer and instructor of three cohorts over the course of 2013-2014 through Women on Writing
• Lansing Regional Sister Cities Commission- Provision of writing services, including grants, web, social media, and publicity pieces (former volunteer)
• La Familia Migrante- Pro bono translation of student activity, through One in a Billion Consulting
• Sero Project- Pro bono translation for HIV advocacy group
• Día de la Mujer Conference, MSU- Pro bono Spanish support/proofreading (2014)
• Advocates for Latino Student Advancement in Michigan- Pro bono writing and editorial support of dignitary invitation letter (2014)
• Lansing for César E. Chávez- Pro bono publicity for annual fundraiser (2014)

Training

• Rhetoric Society of America: workshop “Latino Rhetoric”
• American Writers and Artists Institute: copywriting seminar
• MSU Alumni College: seminars on grant seeking and proposal writing
• IAC Corporation/ About.com: annual training (SEO, SERPS, Google, content, social) 2008-2015
• Nielsen Corporation: webinar “State of the Hispanic Consumer”
• The Storytelling Non Profit Conference 2016

• Center for Story Based Strategy, various webinars/workshops, such as:
  • Introduction of Story Based Strategy, Detroit 2013
  • Online Organizing; A Trick or a Treat?
  • Dissecting Dis-intermediation, Messaging Middlemen

• Immigrant Learning Center Public Education Institute, various webinars such as:
  • Immigrant Student Success Models and Tools, 2012
  • Data and Trends in US Immigration, 2013
  • Comprehensive Immigration Reform, 2013
  • New Messaging Strategies; Positioning Immigrants as Assets, 2014
  • Building United Communities of Immigrants and African Americans, 2015
  • Immigrants and Health Care, 2016

• 4Good Organization: various webinars, such as:
  • Amplify Your Brand
  • Excel for Grant Writers
  • How To Tell Donors a Story
  • State Your Case; Crafting Advocacy Messages
  • How to Plan for Grant Application Success
  • Building Meaningful Online Engagement
  • 3 Key Ingredients for a Successful Online Campaign
  • Supercharge Your Fundraising with Content Marketing
  • Storytelling for Nonprofits
  • Journalism Tricks to Spice Up Grant Proposals
  • Raise More Money with Smarter Email Marketing
  • How to Tell Your Stories on Social Media
  • Mobile Impact 101
  • Nonprofit Blogging
  • Leveraging Social Media for Nonprofit Fundraising
  • Email Marketing 101
  • Telling the Right Story for Your Online Campaign
  • Data Mining for Direct Mail
  • Fundraising with Soc Media
  • SEO 101 for Nonprofits
  • Diversity Awareness for Nonprofits
  • Pinning for Good; How Nonprofits Can Use Pinterest
  • Crisis Communications for Nonprofits
  • Google Analytics for the Nonprofit Beginner
  • Indie Publishing for the Nonprofit
  • Writing Amazing Appeal Letters
  • Google Apps for Nonprofits
  • Social Media Metrics; Turning Data Into Content