Welcome y’all.
Specializing in progressive nonprofit, political, and advocacy campaigns, I develop digital strategies and creative content that motivate elected officials and voters into action on issues important to the Rocky Mountains.
– Sarah Whitson
AREAS OF WORK
ARIZONA
Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation
Chispa Arizona
Get Outdoors Arizona
Arizona Wildlife Federation
Western Resource Advocates
ARKANSAS, MISSOURI, North Carolina, TENNESSEE, & WISCONSIN
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
CALIFORNIA
Albatross Digital
FLORIDA
Good Business Colorado
IDAHO
Idaho Democratic Party
Jill Humble 4 SOS
Michelle Stennett For State Senate
Muffy for Idaho
Toone For District 26
IOWA
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa
Planned Parenthood North Central States
MONTANA
Carol’s List
Forward Montana
Monica Tranel For PSC
Montana Conservation Voters
Montana Mountain Mamas
Montanas For Liberty and Justice
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana
Prairie Populist
NEW MEXICO
Nuestra Tierra Conservation Project
Western Resource Advocates
NEVADA
Get Outdoors Nevada
Save Red Rock
Western Resource Advocates
SOUTH CAROLINA
Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A.
Junior League of Greenville
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
UTAH
Western Resource Advocates
COLORADO
9to5 Colorado
Adventurous 500
Arrae Creative
Backcountry Hunters And Anglers
Big Timbers Community Alliance
Center For African American Health
Changing The Narrative Colorado
Colorado Advantage Business Council (merged with Colorado Outdoor Business Alliance)
Colorado AFL-CIO
Colorado Blueflower Fund
Colorado Canyons Association
Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable
Colorado College Communications Office
Colorado Consumer Health Initiative
Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
Colorado Education Association
Conservation Colorado
Continental Divide Trail Coalition
Colorado Mountain Mamas
Colorado Springs Independent
Creating Opportunity for Colorado
Dave Young For Colorado
Denver Classroom Teachers Association
Earthworks Action Fund
Emerge Colorado
Fight For $15
Faith For SD24
Friends of St. Vrain and Left Hand Water
Generation Latino
Generation Latino Action
Gill Foundation
Good Business Colorado
Great Education Colorado
Green Latinos
Hunger Free Colorado
Impact Finance Center
Interfaith Alliance of Colorado
Jefferson County Education Association
Jessie Danielson for Colorado
Latino Outdoors
Mile High Health Alliance
Naquetta Ricks for HD40
New Era Colorado
Omar Montgomery For Aurora Mayor
Perl for Denver Clerk & Recorder
SEIU 105
San Juan Citizens Alliance
Sara For Erie
Secure Our Savings
Siegel Public Affairs
Sierra Club
Soul 2 Soul Sisters
Spirit Of The Sun
State Innovative Exchange
Story 4 CO
The Colorado Health Foundation
Together Colorado
Towards Justice
United For A New Economy
United For A New Economy Action
Water For Colorado
Western Colorado Alliance
Western Resource Advocates
WildEarth Guardians
Wings Foundation
Work Here Thrive Here
DIGITAL STRATEGY SKILLS
Advocacy Campaigns | List Building (organic and paid) | CRM/Email Management | Organic Social Media Strategy | Paid Social Media Strategy | Grasstops Targeting | Media Buys | Messaging | Online Fundraising | Content Planning | Data Organization and Analysis | Audience Research
CREATIVE CONTENT SKILLS
Brand Development | Messaging | Sharable Content | Video Production | Video Editing | Animation | Audio Production | Graphic Design | Photography | Website Development | Copywriting
MANAGEMENT SKILLS
Cross-campaign and Coalition Coordination | Trainings | Budgeting | Reporting & Bookkeeping | Employee Management | Project/Client Management
*To protect the privacy and intellectual property of my clients, recent case studies and work samples are only available upon request. However, you can check out some of my video work on the Progressive Promotions YouTube channel, or two 2016 case studies on the Progressive Promotions website: BeHeard Mile High or our coordinated get out the vote (GOTV) campaign.*
I’m proud to have helped these campaigns become reality:
Colorado’s 1st-In-The-Nation Methane Safeguards
Uranium Mining Reform
Hermosa Creek Wilderness
Browns Canyon National Monument
Sage Grouse Protection
Colorado’s Water Plan
Colorado’s 3rd-In-Nation Voter Turn Out
Elected Public School Champions
Fab 5 State Senate Wins
Oil & Gas School Setbacks
Colorado’s Electric Vehicle Standards
Colorado’s Secure Savings Program
Great American Outdoors Act
Work
An award-winning photographer, videographer, and writer, I’ve devoted my career to advocating for progressive values.
Born and raised in South Carolina, I loved both breathing in the salty air of the low country and jumping in the ice cold creeks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I learned from my grandmothers that the best place to be is outside and the best work to do is protecting what I love so that others have the opportunity to enjoy and love it too. I’ve tried to follow their advice ever since.
In 2007, I jumped at the opportunity to move to Colorado to attend Colorado College and I haven’t left yet (sorry parents!). I started off my career in Colorado Springs as a freelance multi-media journalist for the Colorado Springs Independent and an intern for the Colorado College Communications Office. After graduating, I moved to Boulder to work at two different tech startups – a creative marketing agency as their senior media producer and a web development firm as their political digital strategy consultant.
After realizing the tech startup world was not for me, I reconnected with the mountains and found my roots again. Through that reconnection, I decided to shift my career toward the conservation and nonprofit world. It was the best decision I could’ve made.
Soon after its merger, I led the digital strategy and creative initiatives at Conservation Colorado in Denver. I managed their online advocacy campaigns, online voter outreach and persuasion efforts, database/CRM, list building, ads, photography, videography, web development, organic social media, and educated staff in other departments on how to integrate digital outreach into their campaign plans to help achieve the organization’s goals more efficiently. I traveled the state several times to learn about the different projects on which we were working and better understand the audiences we wanted to reach. During those road trips, I realized how many untapped - and ignored - audiences there were across the Rocky Mountains.
For the next five years, I led the digital and creative team at Progressive Promotions, a boutique women-owned communications firm in Denver. While at Progressive Promotions, I expanded on my conservation background to work on new issues and broadened my skillset even more by:
conducting candidate and issue campaigns in 15 states
leading grassroots coalitions
training candidates and nonprofits on digital strategy and content creation
supervising our employees, contractors, and growing our staff
managing over $5mil in nonprofit resources
In addition, I spearhead our internal Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) initiatives, including creating equitable job descriptions that helped us recruit more candidates of color, drafting our organizational JEDI statement, developing our JEDI work plan, organizing an anti-oppression training with Regan Byrd Consulting, and requiring all staff to take Soul 2 Soul Sister’s Facing Racism course.
Currently, I am working part time as a climate justice advocacy consultant at Whitson Strategies and am an MBA candidate in Western Colorado University’s Outdoor Industry MBA program, the only outdoor industry-specific MBA program in the country, with an emphasis on corporate social responsibility and developing co-operatives/ESOPs. My capstone project, in partnership with Peak Design, focuses on growing the power, community, and wealth of currently marginalized artists within conservation nonprofit and the outdoor industries.
Current
Consultant
Whitson Strategies
Denver, CO
Candidate, Outdoor Industry MBA
Western Colorado University
Remote
Previous
Progressive Promotions
Conservation Colorado
Albatross Digital
Arrae Creative
CS Indy
Colorado College
LIFE
My wife, Beka, and I met while both working at Conservation Colorado and married in 2017 (if you’re that curious about our story, you can read it on TheWildWhitsons.com, our old wedding website). We now reside in Denver with our two cats, dog, and toddler, Teddy. Avid weekend warriors, we can usually be found hiking or skiing in the central mountains, paddling, camping, watching soccer, or gardening. We also enjoy visiting our families in the two Carolinas and Iowa.
Beka is currently a fellow nonprofit consultant who specializes in fundraising and development for advocacy organizations at Whitson Strategies.
As a queer couple, we support multiple LGBTQ+ organizations and are raising our child with diverse and decolonized perspectives – rooted in the love of our air, water, and public lands.
