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.

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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Quick turn-around
You are a real pleasure to work with, Donna – super professional and an excellent writer. The web copy deck you wrote has a solid flow and a consistent tone. You really understand what our needs are and you got to the heart of what we’re trying to achieve.

Madelen Ortega,
Junxion Strategy

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Seeing the forest through the trees
Thank you a million times over for your help, I couldn’t have done this proposal without you, Donna! You’ve taught us to look at our program and ourselves in a whole new light, and we really like what we see… Thank you for that gift.

Sheila Adcock, Trail Career Development Services

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Rare combination of skills
Donna is real pro: she tackles every project with enthusiasm and follows through on her commitments. She has a rare combination of intellectual curiosity, strategic skill and flexibility that are essential to finding creative solutions to communication challenges.

Cathy Beaumont, Principal, Mainstay Consulting

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Passion
Donna is passionate about helping organizations improve their communications. She really knows her stuff, is very easy to work with and consistently delivers excellent results. I would definitely hire her again.

Kevin Ronaghan, former Executive Director, Centre for Sustainability
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Structure out of chaos
Donna’s ability to create structure out of chaos and to translate spoken ideas into coherent text was a key strength in the completion of our project within the short timeframe we had available. She does not become personally attached to her writing, significantly easing the editing phase and effectively using an iterative process for best results.

Scott Hughes, Director, Community Business Banking, Vancity
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