Repositioning crisis prevention as joyful belonging
How I led a radical brand repositioning that transformed The Trevor Project from crisis-response mode into a proactive, joy-centered community — growing brand awareness by 40%, generating $60M+ in charitable revenue, and building 80+ brand partnerships by shifting the narrative from survival to belonging.
The Challenge
he Trevor Project is the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ young people. When I joined as the organization’s first VP of Marketing, Trevor had an urgent mission and deep credibility — but its marketing strategy was stuck in crisis mode. The brand led with despair when it needed to lead with hope.
Crisis messaging was driving awareness but creating an emotional barrier: young people associated Trevor with the worst moments, not with everyday support. Founded in 1998, the organization operates 24/7 crisis services including the TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, TrevorText, and TrevorSpace — serving the 1.8 million LGBTQ+ youth who seriously consider suicide each year.
TrevorSpace: a monitored social networking site for LGBTQ+ youth ages 13–24 — part of Trevor's evolving ecosystem from crisis response to community belonging.
The Insight: Prevention Over Intervention
I brought a philosophy that would ultimately transform not just the marketing approach, but the entire organizational strategy: if we can reach and affirm LGBTQ+ young people before they meet a moment of crisis, they may never have to meet that fate.
This wasn’t just a marketing message — it became the organizational north star. While Trevor had historically focused on increasing crisis contact volume, I worked with leadership to develop a strategy that extended the aperture toward the ultimate goal: reducing the 1.8 million at-risk LGBTQ+ youth to zero. This required expanding beyond crisis communications to build and maintain deep relationships with LGBTQ+ youth proactively.
If we can reach and affirm LGBTQ+ young people before they meet a moment of crisis, they may never have to meet that fate.
The marketing insight I brought drove a fundamental organizational shift: from measuring ‘crisis contacts served and lives saved’ to focusing on ‘LGBTQ+ young people affirmed.’ I recognized that direct attribution of marketing efforts to suicide prevention outcomes wasn’t possible. Instead of trying to prove direct causation, I developed a measurement framework anchored one step up — focusing on leading indicators that proved we were reaching the right people at the right moment.
The Strategic Rebrand
From survival to thriving. The research I commissioned revealed a critical insight: to impact the rate of suicidality among LGBTQ+ young people, we had to broaden the aperture beyond crisis response. I led the strategic decision to approach the goal through the lens of affirmation and joy — a fundamental repositioning that required executive alignment and organizational buy-in.
This meant shifting the entire content strategy and opening the messaging lens to invite ALL LGBTQ+ young people to see Trevor as their “cool, yet anchored sister” — someone to trust, someone to kiki with, but also someone to confide in during the most critical time of need.
The external brand book codifying the repositioned identity — from visual language and tone of voice to partnership guidelines and campaign frameworks.
Brand partnerships became the engine. By strategically positioning around joy and expression rather than purely crisis intervention, it became significantly easier for brands to see themselves as partners in uplifting LGBTQ+ young lives. The Abercrombie & Fitch breakthrough exemplified this: by repositioning Trevor around joy, I created alignment between the mission and A&F’s brand intrinsics, enabling us to conceptualize a gender-inclusive affirming clothing line that benefited The Trevor Project.
I broadened beyond direct youth engagement to include the adults nearest to them — parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, and community leaders. By reframing the approach and giving key adults the tools to affirm LGBTQ+ youth, I repositioned our work toward creating a society that no longer necessitates crisis intervention services at all.
Sharing Space is The Trevor Project’s roundtable video series featuring trans and nonbinary young people in conversation with curious, open-minded adults. The inaugural episode, moderated by longtime supporter Daniel Radcliffe, set the tone with an open, heartfelt dialogue on identity, allyship, and lived experience.
Outcomes
The philosophy of prevention over intervention became foundational for scaling prevention work and proving ROI to stakeholders. By focusing on building relationships before crisis moments, I demonstrated that sometimes the most powerful impact metric isn’t the end outcome you can’t directly measure — it’s the leading indicator that proves you’re reaching the right people at the right moment.
What I’m proudest of from Trevor isn’t any single campaign. It’s that we built a marketing function that could prove its own value — one that connected brand positioning to revenue generation to mission impact in a way the board could see, stakeholders could trust, and the team could sustain long after any individual left.
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