Lisa Haayen

Nonprofit

Strategy for organizations that serve their communities.

I help nonprofit and community organizations understand the people they serve, then turn that insight into clear brand strategies and marketing plans their teams can put to work.

How I help

  • Stakeholder research

    How clients, donors, and other stakeholders see your organization, and how to best meet their needs.

  • Brand strategy

    Who you are, who you're for, what you offer, and how you deliver it. On a page, in language that is concise enough to remember and use.

  • Annual strategic planning

    Facilitated planning that aligns your team on the year ahead.

  • Ongoing strategy and communications

    Social media strategy, donor outreach, and your digital footprint, with a senior strategist on call.

  • Grant-season strategy refresh

    No time for a deeper workstream? One facilitated worksession captures what you already know and believe on one page.

Nonprofit and healthcare clients

Organizations that have trusted me to lead.

  • American Heart Association and American Stroke Association

    Brand strategy informed by research

  • Cincinnati Children's Hospital

    Brand and creative strategy, informed by research

  • Baylor Health Care System

    Brand strategy for a growing system

  • Literacy Achieves

    Stakeholder research to guide communications messages

  • Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation

    Client research to shape strategic priorities

  • Citizen D Urban Agriculture

    Urban agriculture advocacy startup with the Hunt Foundation. Launched the organization and led development and marketing.

Rooted in community

My connection to nonprofit work began as a volunteer ESL teacher in Dallas' Vickery Meadow neighborhood, which sparked a lasting fascination with migration and the communities it shapes.

My fieldwork there explored how the children of immigrants use friendship networks to shape their identities, and culminated in my Ph.D. in cultural anthropology.

While running my brand strategy practice, I also launched Citizen D for the Hunt Foundation, an initiative supporting under-resourced communities, and ran its strategy as Director of Marketing and Community Relations.

Today, I bring a mix of skills acquired in my for-profit, educational, and nonprofit experiences to bear in every engagement.

A passion for service

  • Visiting Professor, University of North Texas
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, Southern Methodist University
  • Longtime volunteer ESL teacher, Literacy Achieves
  • Active volunteer in the Dallas ISD community
  • Publication: Identity and the Second Generation (Vanderbilt University Press, 2016)

Doing good work that needs a clear strategy?

Let's connect

or email lhaayen@humanspeak.net