Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon & Southwest Washington is a $5M nonprofit providing housing and services for families whose children need acute care for injuries or serious illness.

I joined the organization at a time of tremendous growth: They were already operating two Houses in Portland and had just added a third from Central Oregon. They needed someone to manage an aggressive communications schedule—daily social media posts, monthly appeals and emails, regular ongoing events, biannual newsletters, internal communications, and an annual report athat served as a major marketing and fundraising piece.

Working alongside the Development Director and Special Events Manager, I created a team-wide communications calendar to keep us current on our many deadlines. I added a Graphic Designer to our team to keep us abreast of our design needs and a Social Media Associate to keep our digital voice speaking clearly and consistently. I supported the team in improving, unifying, and expanding our capacities. Working with the Guest Services staff, I envisioned a better system for gathering and recording family stories—new staff cameras, a database of guests, a “look book” of materials to show families—and taught them the basics of nonprofit branding.

Concurrently, I worked to create RMHC’s annual report, which was due four months from my start-date. Quickly I educated myself on all aspects of the organization, arranging for photo and content creation from nearly every department, and coordinating with the printer between narrow deadlines. The result was excellent: distributed to 10,000 supporters, the CEO called the report “the most beautiful to date—on-time and on-budget.”