Donna Barker Communications

I help non-profits and socially responsible businesses learn to tell their stories more effectively.

How?

Through writing, strategic planning and training support.

Here’s a list of services I can provide your organization; a list of my recent clients (feel free to contact any of them for a reference); a few client testimonials; and links to some resources I’ve written.

I sporadically add posts to my blog. Find client stories collected here; my sharedVISION column here; and old health blog posts here.

Here’s a story that I wrote for the Vancouver Foundation’s quarterly magazine. This story was written as part of a series about five families who’ve received support to keep their children with disabilities at home through Giving in Action grants. All five stories (2010) are posted on Giving in Action’s website. And  Sasha’s Voice is beautifully laid-out in the Vancouver Foundation’s quarterly magazine.

Here’s the lead:

Sasha Cumby’s mom, Debbie, says her daughter was a typical 16-year-old. But answering what made Sasha typical, her mom describes a young woman who was anything but an average teen: a straight ‘A’ student and advocate for animal rights, with career aspirations of becoming an environmental lawyer. A Girl Guide in Sparks, Brownies, and Pathfinders. A young woman who was both a deeply committed volunteer and a social activist, she had organized the collection of more than 400 teddy bears to send to children in Afghanistan. On top of her academic and community accomplishments, Sasha held a part-time job at Tim Hortons and babysat, not just her younger brother William (whom she called “her little brat”), but neighbours’ kids as well. People who know the six-foot-tall Sasha say she has an old soul.

In August 2009, Debbie and husband Bill took their kids on their very first family vacation: a trip to Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo and Universal Studios. Three days into their trip,  sitting beside her boyfriend on the Indiana Jones rollercoaster, Sasha went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing. Strapped into the moving ride it was impossible to get Sasha out to perform CPR. First the family, then everyone else on the ride, were screaming to have it stopped. But it was several minutes before Sasha’s father could kick open her car and pull her out. By then, the devastating damage to Sasha’s brain had already been done.

Read the rest of Sasha’s Voice and the rest of the stories in the series.

This is a story I wrote for Vancity in 2010. Part of a series of 18 stories about their grantees.

Vancity supports the work that Fraserside Community Services Society and the South Fraser Women Services Society do in promoting balcony gardens for low-income families in New Westminster and White Rock. 

The Biggest Little Garden in Town just might well be one of the biggest little ideas in Canada.

In 2007, Diane Cairns, the Director of Living Well Programs at Fraserside Community Services Society had a vision: in ten years vegetables would be growing in every nook and cranny of New Westminster, and that the city would be renowned as the biggest urban garden in the world.

She imagined walking down streets and through parking lots lined with vegetable planters. She pictured fresh vegetables growing in every public space, from parks and alleys to courtyards and school yards. She breathed in the smell of the fruit trees that would surround every public building, from City Hall to hospitals to libraries.

“I came up with the idea of providing balcony, container gardens to people living on a low-income in apartments when the local food bank told me that they were having trouble getting donations of fresh fruit and vegetables,” recounts Diane.

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This is a story I wrote for Vancity in 2010. Part of a series of 18 stories about their grantees.

Vancity supports the work of the Better Environmentally Sound Transportation Society, providing convenient and secure bicycle parking at festivals and special events.

It’s a sunny summer day in Vancouver. A perfect day to hop on your bike and head over to the Trout Lake Farmer’s Market. But, since it is such a beautful day, you worry that once you reach the market, you won’t find anywhere to safely lock your bike. Fear not! The BEST Bicycle Valet is there to save the day – and protect your wheels, seat and the contents of your panniers.

Geoffrey Vincent, the BEST Bicycle Valet project manager says that while many community events have started to encourage participants to use environmentally friendly and sustainable ways to get to the events, parking bikes is often a challenge in Vancouver.

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This is a story I wrote for Vancity in 2010. Part of a series of 18 stories about their grantees.

Vancity supports the work of the North Shore Neighbourhood Houses in creating  community gardens and sharing the produce from gardens with those in need.

Metro Vancouver’s leadership in green building, land-use and urban design have earned well-deserved accolades from around the world for years, and, innovative ideas like the North Shore Edible Garden Project, is one reason why we are considered a world-class leader in sustainability.

Since 2006, the Edible Garden Project has been connecting want-to-be gardeners with unused green space on both private and public lands. The results have been fruitful – and vegetable-ful.

Heather Johnstone, the Edible Garden’s Coordinator, says the project, which builds community around learning how to grow food sustainably grows and sharing fresh local produce so everyone can eat healthy food, is a perfect fit for the North Shore.

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This is a story I wrote for Vancity in 2010. Part of a series of 18 stories about their grantees.

Vancity supports the work Toxic Free Canada does encouraging BC resident to get off the bottle and drink tap water.  

Can something as simple as using a refillable container to carry your thirst-quenching beverage change the world? Yes, actually, and in a big way.

Picture 174 full-sized pick-up trucks, payloads filled, dropping off their contents at dumps in British Columbia every day for a whole year. That’s 63,354 trucks dumping their contents in BC landfills. What are they carrying? Garbage? Items that can’t be recycled? Nope. They’re carrying 130 million plastic water bottles and plastic juice and soda containers. 100% recyclable plastic drink bottles that British Columbians have thrown in the trash.

Sean Griffin, research coordinator for Toxic Free Canada pictured this waste (and the 478 million plastic bottles that are recycled each year in BC) and decided to do something about it. Sean researched the problem; he wrote a report about the problem; and, with the Toxic Free Canada team, came up with a plan to solve the problem – a campaign called “Getting off the Bottle.”

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This is a story I wrote for Vancity in 2010. Part of a series of 18 stories about their grantees.

Vancity supports Your Local Farmer’s Market through grants and advice to help grow this social enterprise that brings food from the farms to your table.

Take a deep breath in through your nose.  As your chest expands, your head rises just a little, your eyes close and, it’s hard not to smile. Mmmm! Fresh peaches, picked just hours ago. And along with the sensational smell comes a flood of childhood memories of fruits and vegetables that smelled and tasted like nothing you find in the grocery store these days.

Tara McDonald, Executive Director of Your Local Farmers Market Society (YLFMS) says that “a peach, during peach season, will transform how anyone thinks about food.”

Tara has been Executive Director of YLFMS, which runs the Vancouver Farmers Markets, since 2005 and over the last four seasons has watched as visitors to the city’s farmers markets triple year-over-year. In 2009, over 250,000 people from all over the Lower Mainland made their way to farmers markets located throughout the city year-round.

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This is a story I wrote for Vancity in 2010. Part of a series of 18 stories about their grantees.

Can a calendar build community? Break down stereotypes about a neighbourhood? Improve lives? If that calendar is Hope in Shadows, then the answer is a resounding yes.

Vancity supports the work of the Hope in Shadows Society working to provide low-income individuals with training and employment through their social enterprise, the Hope in Shadows calendar.

Peter Thompson, a thirty-year resident of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, is no stranger to hard work. Originally from Boston Bar, Peter moved to Vancouver at twenty years old with his carpenter’s ticket and a desire to build a life on the coast. In 2006, an accident left Peter with his leg broken in five places, so badly that he needed to have his femur, shin bones and ankle all pinned back together. His three decades working as a carpenter came to an abrupt halt. For a man used to doing a hard day’s work, sudden unemployment – both the free time and the significantly reduced income – was a difficult adjustment.

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This is a story I wrote for Vancity in 2010. Part of a series of 18 stories about their grantees.

Vancity supports Street Youth Job Action, a social enterprise that provides work skills training and life skills support to homeless youth,  by providing two years of funding and coaching support through our Social Enterprise Fund.    

At 31 years old, Ange Myers exudes the energy of a teenager and the compassion of a dear old auntie—with facial piercings and dreadlocks.

Ange is the go-to youth worker with Street Youth Job Action (SYJA), a social enterprise initiative of Directions Youth Services Centre, that provides jobs to young people who are living on the streets.

By investing in social enterprises, Vancity believes that not-for-profits can operate successful businesses that will train and hire individuals who need skill development and support.  Street Youth Job Action makes a difference in the lives of homeless and at-risk youth by giving them a chance to work.  It is a hand-up not a hand-out.

Watching the SYJA crew picking up needles, washing graffiti off garbage bins or cleaning the streets around St. Paul’s Hospital, one might not see the great accomplishments each employee had to achieve to become employed by SYJA.

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Vancity supports the Abbotsford Community Services Community Kitchen, a space where small groups of people pool their food resources, cook together and take healthy meals home to feed their families.

Having access to a food bank ensures that people living on a low income will eat well, right? Not necessarily.

Staff of the Abbotsford Community Services, who run the Abbotsford Food Bank noticed a disturbing trend in the food that many of the clients using their services were taking home. Month after month, people would choose the same foods; not the most nutritious offerings but the pre-packaged, prepared foods. The staff and the volunteer Board of Directors (including two Vancity staff) sat down to talk about this situation. Although they were providing access to affordable and nutritious food, people who didn’t grow up with the benefit of having watched Mom or Dad prepare meals, had never learned to cook nutritious options. And so, the Abbotsford Community Kitchen was born.

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I help non-profits and socially responsible businesses learn to tell their stories more effectively.

How?

Through writing, strategic planning and training support.

Here’s a list of services I can provide your organization; a list of my recent clients (feel free to contact any of them for a reference); a few client testimonials; and links to some resources I’ve written.

I sporadically add posts to my blog. Find client stories collected here; my sharedVISION column here; and old health blog posts here.

Story telling workshop provides direction

Thank you so much for the great workshop. Your passion and knowledge of using stories to engage people was reflected in the presentation.

Our team has a much deeper understanding of the elements of a good story, how to weave in our community leadership objectives into the story, and take pictures that support the story. It will be fun to compare our existing stories with the ones that we compose over the next six months!

The list we compiled on the challenges/barriers to our team capturing and writing stories was extremely helpful in framing the work we have before us. As a first step, I will be developing a ‘story writing guideline’.

Many, many thanks for all your hard work.

Brigitte O’Rooney
Senior Community Leadership Associate

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Adding a personal spin to health issues

It’s been a joy to have your voice in the publication. You are a fine writer … that perfect hybrid of storytelling while educating. I always looked forward to reading your contributions.

Rebecca Ephraim
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief

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Writes for people, not awards
Donna is an excellent writer. Most importantly she understands how to communicate with readers. Donna writes intelligently but simply, and to me that’s a great gift.

The material she writes helps her clients to reach the broadest possible audience. This is critical when you’re working with an organization that needs to communicate a message, especially if the message is to encourage people to take action.

In addition, Donna understands fundraising as a political sensibility. This allows her to navigate through the complications of all the different constituencies and interests of nonprofits.

Harvey McKinnon, President, Harvey McKinnon Associates

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