npMarketing Blog

First Post...

First posting of a new blog is sort of like the first day of school... I have very, very modest hopes for this blog however... no pressure.

I've been thinking about creating a new blog that will help the non-profit marketers learn, share and continue to do great work. I hate talking too much about myself, but just for background, here's how I ended up working in the non-profit sector...

First came college (Go NOLES!) - my degree in Advertising helped me learn that media buying wasn't my cup of tea. After doing an internship at an ad agency ($100 a month!!), I ended up back in school at the Art Institute of Atlanta where I learned to be a graphic designer. Jobs at MCI and UPS helped me realize that doing print graphics and forms layout was about as exciting as media buying. The Internet was the place for me...

I met a guy named Mark Swanson who was running a small technology company in Atlanta and joined his crew building websites. Our little company was eventually bought by iXL (yep, you remember those guys don't you). I was one of their first Information Architects and learned a lot about site design and project management at iXL - and eventually helped create a company called Kinzan based in San Diego which made an enterprise software package.

From there, I did one last start up (One last get rich quick scheme I mean) and woke up one day feeling pretty empty, extremely drained and all out of passion. I had planned to move to NY (back to family) from San Diego and started a job search. By accident, I saw a posting for a Web Alliances position at the March of Dimes. I hadn't ever thought about working for a not-for-profit until that moment, but inspiration hit me over the head... why work to help some rich dudes get richer - why not attempt to be a part of the greater good - why not put my skills to work in a way that could actually benefit society?

I ended up working at MOD for more than 3 years and had a wonderful time. My legacy is a community web site called "Share" - a site I battled for and won against internal politics and technical odds, but is now flourishing amazingly well.

I'm now parking my vast library of business books and Mallrats Inaction figurines at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I've been at LLS since December 2004 and have been having a heck of a time getting things rolling here - but we're well on our way!

So... back to the blogging bits... I plan to share insights, thoughts and hopefully to develop relationships through this site that can benefit your non-profit as well! If you stumble across my little blog, feel free to drop me a line.

Stay tuned...

-Marc

posted by Marc @ 2:41 PM