Start the Convo
The 12-Month Plan
A year of marketing strategy, built in three months and run by your own team.
I'M READY
Three months. One to learn how your organization works, one to build the year's plan, one to train your team to run it. I set direction and make sure what your people build holds together.
What the problem actually costs
Money spent on marketing with no way to say what it was for. Staff time lost to rebuilding the plan every quarter. A team that asks "what should we do" and gets a guess. Board meetings where marketing is the slide everyone moves past. And the quiet sense that an organization this capable should have figured this out by now.
You run an organization with more than $1 million in revenue or annual operating budget. Someone is handling marketing: a coordinator, a contractor, a board member with a good eye. Nobody is setting direction. So every campaign starts from scratch, the newsletter and the annual appeal sound like two different organizations, and you approve plans you don't fully believe in because there's no one to ask.
You've priced a full-time marketing director and decided against it. You've hired an agency and ended up with deliverables nobody on staff could carry forward. What you want is a plan your people understand and the confidence to run it all year.
Who this is for
Fifteen years in marketing, starting with eight years inside mid-sized nonprofit theaters where I marketed more than 300 events a year. Since 2019, Toombs Creative has worked with clients across more than 30 industries, most often building strategy that an in-house team then carried out.
Alongside that, I've spent years in development, raising more than $7 million through major gifts, sponsorships, and grants, including the major gifts phase of a $2.3 million capital campaign. I know how your money moves, how your board thinks, and what your staff can realistically carry.
I also built Marketing Mapped Out, software that walks small business owners through the same sequence a marketing department would run. The process in this engagement is the same one, adapted for an organization with a team.
MBA in Sustainable Innovation, University of Victoria. Based in Port Townsend, Washington. Sessions on Zoom, with in-person available in the Pacific Northwest.
Why Me
I'M READY
Month 1: Extraction.
Month 2: Development.
How the three months work
We finish with a handoff session where your team walks me through the system. You leave with a trained team, an operating document that records every decision and why it was made, and a plan already in motion.
Month 3: Team training and handoff.
I'M READY
A plan your team can run
This engagement exists so your organization stops needing one.
What I Don't Do
An operating document, so the next hire or board member can pick it up. And a marketing lead who has spent three months making decisions alongside a strategist and is ready to make them alone.
What You Walk Away With
I'M READY
$25,000 total
Want the plan in hand for the new year? The engagement needs to start this fall.
Availability
For context, a full-time marketing director at this level costs well over $100,000 a year before benefits.
In three months, this engagement gives you the year's plan and a team that can run it.
Investment
I'M READY
Yes. The buyer is any organization at this size without a strategist on staff. The process is the same.
What happens after the three months?
Your team runs the plan. A monthly advisor retainer is available if you want a strategist on call. Never required.
One month to understand your organization, one to build the plan, one to put it in your team's hands.
Our marketing person is part-time. Is that enough?
Usually, yes. Someone on staff needs to own the plan after handoff. We'll confirm that on the call.
Can our board or executive director take part?
Yes. I'll ask the executive director to join Month 1 and the Month 2 approval. Direction gets set at that level.
