Client: Holyrood Trail Association

The challenge

Community-based organizations often need to do more with less. They need strategies that feel credible, flexible, and meaningful to the people who will actually carry them forward, without requiring a full-time marketing team to execute.

For HTA, the challenge was building a fundraising and content strategy rooted in real audience research, practical enough to implement, and strong enough to grow with the organization.

What I did

The work began with research: into the audience, the community, the language of outdoor and trail culture, and the practical realities of non-profit fundraising. From that research, I developed a strategic fundraising guide that covered audience identification, mission-aligned merchandise, community engagement tactics, pricing strategy, and digital platform recommendations.

I also researched and compiled national and provincial grant opportunities relevant to the organization's work, giving them a practical starting point for securing ongoing funding.

Rather than just delivering a document, I built a framework the organization could use independently and sustainably. A system, not a one-time deliverable.

Why this matters for 7 Fathoms

Strong editorial work starts before the writing. It starts with research, listening, organizing information, and noticing the patterns other people might miss.

For 7 Fathoms, those patterns could come from customer reviews, testimonials, surveys, social comments, product questions, practitioner conversations, retailer feedback, founder interviews, media research, or industry trends. My strength is taking that scattered information and turning it into useful direction: content themes, story angles, audience insights, outreach opportunities, and practical next steps.

That matters because the best content systems are not built from guesswork. They are built from what people are already asking, feeling, noticing, needing, and saying.