A Marketing Partnership for a Nonprofit and Its Social Enterprise
House Collective partnered with a Southern California nonprofit and social enterprise for more than two years, providing ongoing marketing leadership and a curated team to support its growing community. Working directly with the founders and team, we developed the marketing strategy and plan and built the digital infrastructure connecting website, email, content, stakeholder communications, fundraising initiatives, and measurement.
Strategic Marketing · Marketing Leadership · Website & Digital Experience
Stakeholder communications · Community engagement · Fundraising support
501(c)(3) Nonprofit & Social Enterprise · 680K+ Meals Served · 430K+ Lbs. of Food Diverted
Southern California · Zero-waste food recovery · Catering, food production & education
A connected digital and communications foundation spanning website, email, content, CRM, automation, stakeholder communications, fundraising initiatives and measurement.
Ongoing marketing leadership helped the organization engage multiple audiences, support fundraising and strengthen a partner ecosystem advancing food recovery and community access.
OPPORTUNITY
Connecting a growing mission with multiple audiences
The organization was expanding its work across food recovery, community meals, catering, education, events, fundraising initiatives, and a growing network of community partners. Its marketing needed to serve multiple audiences and stakeholder relationships while clearly communicating the mission, programs, and ways people could participate and support the work.
STRATEGY
Building a connected digital and communications foundation
House Collective developed the marketing plan and digital roadmap, provided ongoing marketing leadership, and brought together the specialists needed for implementation.
We redesigned the organization’s website and developed a connected digital foundation that could evolve with its programs, partnerships, fundraising initiatives, and social enterprise activities. The work extended into ongoing website management, email marketing, CRM and automation, SEO and content, stakeholder communications, and measurement.
Responsibilities
Selected Results
Strategy, leadership and implementation
Community, events and fundraising
Grown and segmented audience
High-performing measured newsletter
Supported across the digital ecosystem
Digital campaign assets and communications
Marketing figures reflect platform-reported data and House Collective project records during the engagement. The fundraising figure reflects the client’s initiative goal.
SELECTED WORK
Connecting digital experience, lifecycle communications, fundraising, and partner engagement
House Collective connected the website, content, email, CRM, automation, stakeholder communications, and measurement to support the organization’s audiences, programs, fundraising initiatives, and expanding community ecosystem.
Connecting multiple audiences through one digital experience.
The organization served several audiences with different reasons for engaging, including donors, volunteers, community partners, catering clients, event participants, and supporters. The digital experience needed to make those pathways clear while representing the organization’s mission and communities thoughtfully across language, imagery, and content.
We structured the digital experience around these different journeys, developing dedicated content and conversion paths while connecting forms, CRM segmentation, automated workflows, SEO, analytics, and ongoing communications.
As the organization evolved, the website continued to support new programs, events, fundraising initiatives, partner recognition, catering, workshops, organizational updates, and other ways for the community to participate.
Keeping the community connected through email.
House Collective established and managed a consistent email program to support ongoing communication with the organization's community.
Across the engagement, we developed and managed 40 email campaigns spanning newsletters, community events, fundraising initiatives, program updates, partnerships, and seasonal communications. We also supported templates, audience segmentation, campaign content, workflows, and ongoing list management.
The email audience grew to more than 2,100 contacts, with segmentation supporting more relevant communications across the organization's different audiences. A measured newsletter achieved a 56% open rate, while the program maintained strong delivery and healthy list engagement.
Supporting fundraising with dedicated digital campaigns.
Fundraising initiatives were supported with dedicated digital experiences and communications designed around specific goals and audiences.
For a $48,000 mobile food education fundraising initiative, House Collective supported the organization with dedicated web content and landing-page experiences, email communications, website promotions, fundraising progress updates, and related content.
These assets gave the team a repeatable way to use its broader marketing infrastructure to communicate specific fundraising priorities and engage supporters around individual initiatives.
Supporting a growing partner ecosystem.
Community relationships were central to the organization's model, spanning agricultural partners, food recovery organizations, municipalities, nonprofits, restaurants, retailers, businesses, delivery partners, and other community organizations.
House Collective built and maintained the digital infrastructure used to organize, recognize, communicate, and amplify a network of more than 50 partner organizations across the organization's digital ecosystem.
That work included partner content and recognition, website updates, email communications, events and program content, and communications supporting new collaborations as the network expanded.
OUTCOMES
Creating a communications system the organization could continue using
Over more than two years, House Collective served as an ongoing strategic marketing partner to the founders and team.
Through regular strategy meetings, we helped establish priorities, provided recommendations, identified marketing needs, curated specialists, and guided implementation across website, email, content, SEO, campaigns, stakeholder communications, forms, workflows, online listings, and measurement.
This structure gave the organization access to experienced marketing leadership and specialized implementation capacity while allowing its team to stay focused on programs, partnerships, and community impact.
IMPACT
Supporting food recovery, community connection, and fundraising
The connected marketing foundation helped the organization communicate its mission, engage multiple audiences, support fundraising initiatives, and strengthen a digital ecosystem spanning more than 50 partner organizations.
The organization gained a flexible system for supporting food recovery, community meals, education, events, catering, donor engagement, and continued collaboration as its work evolved.
“Sarah and her team did a fantastic job getting our website created and maintained. Our biggest concern was conveying the appropriate branding and image for our organization. House Collective nailed it!”
Former Co-Founder, Southern California Nonprofit & Social Enterprise
Zero-waste food recovery · Community meals · Catering, food production & education