Emily B Flynn

Brought on as part of a grant, I joined the Natural Resources Family Foundation project to redesign and modernize web and educational content in 2020. The website, online marketplace, pamphlets, marketing materials, equipment rental handouts, class slides, class marketing, and class take-home materials all were getting a top-down redesign and I had a part in writing and designing all of them. 

I worked directly with The Executive Director, Director of Operations, UX designers, social media consultants and coordinators, a stakeholder council, and course instructors to make sure my writing was:

• Factually correct and in line with tangible and intangible changes.
• Upholding the mission of this long-standing and well-respected non-profit organization. 
• Evidence-based and thoroughly researched. 
• Compelling, interesting, engaging, and appropriately directed at our target audience.

Since I had already taught at this organization, been part of several of their community events, did legal research for a partner organization (Homeless Prenatal Program) prior, and was Ethics Chair on the board of the doula group associated with the organization, there was a lot of trust and support in what I was contributing to this massive undertaking. The collaboration was useful and wonderful — especially so early in the pandemic — but I worked largely independently to try and get as much of this work done in a short period of time.

The majority of this project focused on updating all the web copy, producing a suite of new marketing content, and modernizing the classroom presentation and materials. The brand design deck and mission statement were done by the time I joined in, and the rest was updated from there. I had a lot of fun seeing the cleaner, more contemporary designs come to life through my words and print material designs. Who knew the old school tri-fold pamphlet could be a joyful thing to work on? 

The best part of this project (and by far the most time consuming) was updating the courses. I brought my research background and 1:1 B2C client work to each component. The curriculum before was out-of-date, full of typos, honestly not totally up to snuff on copyright concerns, and while it was a beloved class taught to thousands over the years it didn’t totally address the current needs of its attendees. My work helped create a more inclusive framework from marketing to handouts while at the same time making it more interactive and informative. I’m enormously proud of how it all came together. 

I believe strongly in the mission of this incredible organization and was delighted to be part of the work they do with the community and beyond. I wish the grant didn’t create such a restricted timeframe for this project! 

The tools I used included Slack, Canva, Pixel, Hemingway, Sharethrough, Google Drive, and Over.

March 2020 – July 2020