Impact Storytelling
BioLite is a social enterprise with a unique business model we named Parallel Innovation. With one foot in the affluent Outdoor Market and another in Emerging Markets where energy access is under-served, we leverage our ability to design core technologies and turn them into solutions unique to each user case. Energy Poverty, clean cooking, carbon, social enterprise models: these can all be difficult to understand if you’re not in it every day – and it’s my job to help our community of supporters understand what we do, how they affect it, and why we should all believe in Energy For All.
The Power of Home
Bringing Energy Access to life through human-centered storytelling. When I met my colleague Kennedy on a trip to Kenya for home visits, I immediately knew he was the key to bringing this concept home.
I was responsible for script direction, storyboarding, and final edit approval. Our film was picked up by Outside, REI, and others, vastly improving our viewership and distribution beyond our YouTube and Meta channels alone.
Mobile Money
Like our own little mini episode of Planet Money, we made this mini-doc to drive home the paradox of cell phone ownership outpacing electrification access in east Africa and its impact on small businesses and families. Just one of the many angles of dimensionalizing Energy Poverty.
10 years of Annual Impact Reporting
I have been the Editor In Chief of 10 Impact Reports from BioLite, pairing data with stories of individuals to bring our mission to life. This report is distributed annually to investors, stakeholders, and our database of customers and supporters, reaching hundreds of thousands of people.
A cornerstone of our impact communications, it’s critical to have my CEO’s voice in this work. And he’s busy. It’s my job as lead communications strategist to use our brief time together to extract his priority talking points and turn them into our opening address. Same goes for our annual Thank You that happens November each year.
Below are some highlights from our reports and here are a view of my favorite years: 2019, 2021, 2024
More Impact Touchpoints
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Thought Leadership
Hosted on both the BioLite blog and Medium, I co-authored a 10 part series about The Road to Impact and the challenges of standing up a social enterprise. Our article about the trial and error of sales models was published by Harvard Business Review.
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Packaging & Environment
Every outdoor product we sell has a message that ties back to our mission and impact. Customers are reminded they are not only getting a great product, they are helping us bring energy everywhere.
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Press & Media
In addition to product reviews and commerce hits that drive sales, I also work closely with our PR team to pitch journalists on our deeper impact. In addition to the multi-page spread above, here is one of my favorites.
Ask me about: Storytelling with agency and dignity, why 1 for 1 isn’t for everybody, the tricky world of socially desirable signals vs actual behaviors, volunteer carbon markets, Pay-Go Models and micro-financing, last-mile agents and field technicians as superheroes.