You’ve spent way too much time
writing about your impact
when what you really want is to
focus on making one.
There’s a compelling story
waiting to be told about your
vision, value, and legacy.
You’re doing dope things in your community. On behalf of your members. For your clients. You’re killing the game — you know it and I know it. You’re ready to boost your impact and expand your reach. But when it comes to finding the right words to share your liberation-driven mission, practice, or call to action with the world, you find yourself wringing your hands in front of a blank Canva template or playing a rousing game of ‘not it!’ with your team. Whether your goal is to attract and retain new participants or clients, persuade a donor to write that check, launch a new project or campaign, celebrate your latest wins with the community, or change hearts, minds, and laws — what might be possible without the added pressure of being a ‘good writer’?
By now, I bet you’re thinking: Yeah, that sounds like a dream — but what does it even look like to hand the writing off to someone who doesn’t do my work or know my people?
As a former collective impact director at a national civil rights organization: trust me, I get it. So much of our team’s time went into writing website copy, outreach emails, policy briefs, impact reports, narrative-shifting initiatives, webinar scripts, implementation toolkits, press releases, advocacy statements, and presentation materials — valuable energy that ultimately chipped away at our capacity to authentically engage community and daydream up the future. But the idea of trusting anyone else with the sacred task of narrating our story — a highly polarizing story about protecting the reproductive health rights of adolescents in foster care — seemed implausible.
enter, blackbird storytelling.
Strategic, freedom-forward copy, communications & design for the makers, the mavens & the matriarchs who want to do less writing about their big, hairy, audacious dreams so that they can spend more time bringing them into form.
Brought to you by someone who’s been there & written that.
By the way, have we met yet?
I’m Lesli.
Prior to becoming a ‘free radical,’ I spent 17 years in a variety of nonprofit organizations lifting the stories of BIPOC young people in South Central L.A. in an effort to galvanize collective commitment to their freedom. I’ve gathered with co-conspirators and co-founded a free, social-justice oriented high school and college completion program for systems-involved youth, and I’ve inaugurated a state-wide coalition to ensure young folks in foster care have bodily autonomy and the power to determine if, when & under what circumstances to start a family. As a freelancer, I’ve co-written an affirmation deck for Black parents to dismantle intergenerational fear and embody a stance of liberated parenting and I’ve gathered and re-told stories of Black community doulas working on the frontlines in a time where Black women and birthing folks are 3x more likely to die in childbirth. All of my work has been grounded in storytelling – both in the form of amplifying the narratives of the silenced for the purpose of fundraising, advocacy and organizing; and in the form of providing community with the tools and protection to share their stories in strategic ways that raise awareness while interrupting tokenization and re-traumatization.
You picking up what I’m putting down? If so, here’s how our collab would go.
01 Tap In & Apply
You’ll complete a comprehensive onboarding questionnaire so we can gather information about the space you occupy, your goals, your audience, your unique voice, and more.
02 Connect & Catalyze
We’ll meet over a two-hour zoom call to review your questionnaire, deepen our team’s understanding of your work, fill in any gaps, and co-create a communications & design scope and plan.
03 Research & Unearth
We’ll connect with your team and network to dig deeper into what makes you, you — to ensure that we’re amplifying your story & brand in a way that reflects what your community has come to love you for.
04 Conceptualize & Design
You get to turn your attention back to the work that matters, while we write about it. We also offer in-house design & branding services if that’s of interest.
05 Reconnect & Reflect
You’ll receive your community-informed copy and other accompanying documents & products (e.g., logos, color palettes) in a lightly formatted Google doc.
06 Revise & Release
We’ll complete up to two rounds of revisions to ensure the final product is something you can bless and release into the world with pride.
And sure, I’ve got the gift of gab* and a way with words.
*Well, written gab. Because my social gab? Let’s just say: it’s giving Awkward Black Girl. And not the cool Issa Rae variety.
But that’s not even blackbird storytelling’s Zone of Brilliance.
My real offering is the ability to truly see you and then choose the right words to reflect you, in all your authentic dopeness.
Your story is sacred. Let’s get it to work for you the same way you work for your folks.