Highlight: GURU for Seva Foundation & REBBL
A MISSION TO INCREASE JOY AND REDUCE SUFFERING
Brianna joined Guru Media Solutions, a Certified B Corp, in the fall of 2017 to support the Founder and Managing Director in the goal of turning a scrappy consultancy into a polished professional agency with clout in its category: cause marketing for purpose-driven brands.
In just over two years—as the Director of OM (Operations and Marketing), and then as the Director of Marketing and Development—Brianna helped establish a successful remote culture and creative process with tools and resources that supported its employees across the country; built a new business pipeline and business development process that nurtured potential clients and ushered them into the agency with care; and authored intentional marketing strategy that celebrated the successes of the agency and its impressive client roster of conscious brands.
Brianna led the development of Guru's new website, launched at the end of 2019, bringing the Founder's creative direction to life with a team of designers and developers. Brianna also wrote all of the copy for the website.
Brianna founded and wrote "The Joy Watch" newsletter series for clients, employees, and friends of the agency—a weekly dose of good news to support Guru's mission to increase joy and reduce suffering in the world.
When Brianna first joined GURU, in order to set some of the new processes by example, Brianna served as the account director for some incredible client brands:
The Fight for Sight
Meeting Wavy Gravy was cool. Working with Executive Director Kate Moynihan was an honor. But learning that more than a billion people across the globe live with vision impairments and 90% of them can be cured with a $50, 15-minute surgery was one of the most impactful brand insights of Brianna’s career.
Seva is a global nonprofit eye care organization that transforms lives and strengthens communities by restoring sight and preventing blindness. Restoring sight is one of the most effective ways to relieve suffering and reduce poverty. Since 1978, Seva has worked with local communities in more than 20 countries to develop self-sustaining eye care programs that provide critical eye care to underserved communities, especially women, children, and indigenous peoples. Seva has provided surgeries, eyeglasses, medicine, and other eye care services to 64 million people over four decades of service to humanity. (As quoted from their website.)
Brianna led the team at GURU who developed a powerful annual fundraising appeal magazine to help Seva continue to do this crucial work.
Let Food Be Thy Medicine
GURU worked with REBBL in the early days, when the company was led by the powerhouse team of self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur and then-CEO Sheryl O'Loughlin and the brand was being shaped by the incomparable SVP Marketing Rusti Porter and her team, while co-founder Palo Hawken mixed new righteous plant alchemy and functional beverages in the on-site kitchen.
REBBL was born of a mission to end human trafficking. What do functional beverages have to do with human trafficking? Well, that mission began in 2011, the year the international not-for-profit organization Not For Sale set out to uplift a particularly vulnerable community in the Peruvian Amazon. This “lush, tropical geography, so rich with natural resources, was also one of the poorest regions in the world, and economic instability was a root cause of the community’s vulnerability to exploitation. Economic empowerment was deeply needed.” Learn more from REBBL here and via the microdocumentary below.
Brianna and the team at GURU led a brand strategy briefing session with investor and actor Ruby Rose, developed a new website, and a campaign.