PART ONE: TOP 10 PROJECTS IN 10 YEARS

First day of entering the freelance world

Time flies when you’re having fun!

The idea of writing a blog post featuring my top projects over the past however many years I’ve been doing communications and website design came up recently, and I realized that I completely missed my 10th anniversary. 

RB Collaborative was formally launched in 2021, but I’ve been in the freelance game for more than a decade now. My first clients were people I knew — an interior designer who was also my sister’s best friend’s mom, a North Fork winery that I also worked at on weekends, and a college pal who opened a blow dry bar in the Hamptons. This venture out on my own was intended to be short lived, just a few months until I found a new job. Well, we see how that went. 

10 favorite projects over 10 years is a lot to think about and even more to summarize. So, here’s the first five…

A happy moment: rehabilitated seal is released back into the wild

First Nonprofit
As with the majority of my clients, I was introduced to the New York Marine Rescue Center through a friend of a friend. I met with executive director Rob DiGiovanni and fundraising manager Joanne Biegert, and I was convinced I bombed it. [Source: I didn’t even know we had dolphins and sea turtles in New York.] 

But in the eyes of Rob and Joanne, I was the right fit. We worked together with the view that I was the target audience. If you could inform and inspire me, you could reach the masses.

My role consisted of managing crisis communications during marine mammal and sea turtle stranding events. This was entirely new to me, and I found myself coordinating with all media outlets to ensure accurate dissemination of information, interviews, photos and videos, etc., as was often quoted as the public information officer in the press. When Rob moved on to start his own marine conservation organization, Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, I followed.

To this day, whenever a whale makes the news in New York, my friends think of me.

First Website
While I had worked on established websites for past jobs and clients, the only one I had built myself was for personal use. Again through a friend I met the owners of Oysterponds Shellfish Company, and developed a website that offered a beautiful portrayal of their story. It was around this time that I also first started working with logo designer Rachael Haase. We’ve collaborated on several projects together over the years, most recently on the logo and branding for the Foundation for Wildlife Sustainability.

With Kristina Lange after a site visit in Bridgehampton, New York for Group for the East End’s annual fundraising gala

Intro to Event Planning
My role in fundraising events happened out of near desperation. I had been working with Group for the East End for less than a year, and was asked by the president, Bob DeLuca, to support the director of membership, Kristina Lange, ahead of the fundraising benefit just weeks away. I did whatever was asked of me, and after the event, it was discussed that this become part of my official role. Now, the benefit is one of my favorite things to work on. I enjoy getting to be someone else’s right hand woman, and Kristina and I manage to have a lot of fun in the craziness that occurs - organization, design, vendor management, execution, and the big night. It’s an incredibly fun party for our donors, and is a major source of support toward the Group’s mission of protecting the land, water, and wildlife on the East End.

On the West Coast 
Ahead of my move to San Diego I began cold emailing potential clients for the first time. Of the many, many emails that went out, a few landed in the right inbox. San Diego Coastkeeper needed a strategic annual plan that included a 25th anniversary campaign. The staff was just super cool, and to this day it is one of the most fun projects I have worked on and am incredibly proud of.

Onsite at Southampton Arts Center

Discovering the Arts
In RB Collaborative’s first official year, I saw a communications job listing for the Southampton Arts Center, and somehow convinced them to hire a contractor instead of an in-house person. I worked closely with executive director Tom Dunn on a number of projects, including the new website, defining the organization’s brand, public relations, and much more. I’m so proud of what we were able to accomplish. When Tom left to take on a new role at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at LIU Post, I was fortunate to work with him there during their transition of finding a new marketing director. 

You may have gathered from this roundup that word of mouth is a pretty powerful form of marketing. More of my faves coming next week, so stay tuned!

— RB