Past copy writing gigs have included political speeches, commercial scripts, PR statements, a corporate marketing plan, and the annual report of a not-for-profit. Each sample below has a brief introduction.
The National Council For Adoption (NCFA)
The NCFA has several constituencies, including birthparents, adoptive parents, the U.S.
government, private foundations, and other Americans concerned with domestic infant adoption, intercountry adoption, or
adoption out of foster care. Not all of NCFA’s stakeholders have identical political agendas, and NCFA performs the
politically delicate work of seeing that different interest groups work together in the best interest of children.
I am pleased that the CEO and COO of NCFA trusted me to write their 2009 annual report.
NCFA 2009 Annual Report - PDF (2 MB)
Natural disaster struck Haiti in January 2010. Non-governmental organizations played important roles in the relief
efforts, but these organizations were not unified in their positions on intercountry adoption. The nuances and intricacies
of intercountry adoption led to public debate about how to draw distinctions among groups of Haitian orphans, and I drafted
the following statement for NCFA, working under supervision of chief operating officer Chuck Johnson.
Haiti PR Statement - PDF
Young Invincibles
At the same time as I was working at NCFA, I was also involved in health care advocacy efforts under the aegis of Young Invincibles.
Young Invincibles is a non-profit group founded by Ari Matusiak and Aaron Smith for sake of representing the interests of Americans
under 35 in health-care reform efforts. The group took its name by ironically appropriating the insurance-industry term for young people
without health insurance. Young Invincibles counters the insurance-industry claim that young people who do not have health insurance
simply do not want it.
Working with Young Invincibles, I was an executive producer for two commercials we shot in Chicago in December
2009 on very quick turnaround (See Video). Below I have included a sample script for another
Young Invincibles commercial, this one as an example of one I wrote myself (with co-writer Jan Dane); this one was slated for production
in Rhode Island but the production process is currently on hold. The script has a deadpan tone, and the humor (as well as the hook
for a viewer to remember the ad) lies in the fact that a viewer probably would not apprehend the tone until the third or fourth actor speaks.
Young Invincibles Script - PDF
