The Association Blog

Meet DeSean Brown, VP, Client Strategy & Success, One & All, and find out his three questions for assessing where your organization is—and where you’re going.

My one bit of advice is…

alignment is essential.

Alignment brings me to One & All and the animal welfare space. After 20 years working across marketing, technology, and sales functions in corporate advertising, I was looking to align my personal goal of becoming a better global citizen—helping make the world a better place—with a career of helping organizations create meaningful and successful connections with their audiences and communities they serve. Along this journey, I found One & All, and One & All found me.

One & All is a performance agency for social good. The heart of the agency reveals people driven by a passion and promise to better the world through a shared purpose of giving back. This is where I needed to be.

Within the agency, Client Strategy & Success unifies us. It ensures we take a strategic approach with everything we do to serve our animal welfare clients, their communities, and supporters. Our client strategy, giving sciences, creative, customer experience, and production teams collaborate and execute on strategy every day to craft the best possible client and supporter experiences. This constant connection helps us to remain agile and explore opportunities to seek efficiencies, optimization, and growth. It builds confidence in where we are and where we’re going.

My second bit of advice for animal welfare fundraisers is an iteration of the first:

Seek alignment as often as possible….

To connect, listen, and engage with internal stakeholders across function. There are only so many hours in the day to bring folks together, but whether it’s monthly, quarterly, or biannually, it matters to keep your top-level strategies and objectives in view. Assess where you are and where you’re going. 

“What’s our why?”  
“Are we on brand?”
“Are we on goal and strategy?” 

Connect with your communities and supporters to align on their wants and needs. This helps to ensure all that you do is strategic and consistent across your ecosystem—perpetually driving toward your stated mission. 

I am so very happy to be in the animal welfare space and at One & All. We look forward to aligning with you soon.

More DeSean? Listen to his recent conversation with The Association’s Katherine M. Shenar and find out his top two favorite brands, and what to do if someone doesn’t like that great campaign and messaging you just created.

More from One & All

Marketing & Fundraising: 4 Do’s & 3 Probably Not’s
How the Cookie Is Crumbling