.webp&w=3840&q=75)
Transforming The Trevor Project
How strategic marketing leadership revolutionized the world's largest LGBTQ+ mental health organization, increasing brand awareness by 40% and helping generate $60MM+ in charitable revenue.
When I joined The Trevor Project as Vice President of Marketing, I brought a revolutionary philosophy that would fundamentally transform how the world's largest LGBTQ+ mental health organization approached its mission. The strategic marketing framework I developed didn't just change our campaigns—it reshaped our entire organizational strategy, increased brand awareness by 40%, helped in generating over $60MM in charitable revenue, and earned us industry recognition including Adweek's 2021 Brand Save award.
This is the story of how strategic marketing leadership can transform a legacy nonprofit from crisis-reactive to community-proactive, ultimately saving more lives by preventing crises before they occur.
Understanding The Trevor Project's Foundation
Founded in 1998, The Trevor Project stands as the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. What began as a response to the HBO film "Trevor" has evolved into a comprehensive support ecosystem serving the 1.8 million LGBTQ+ youth who seriously consider suicide each year in the United States.
The organization operates 24/7 crisis support services including:
- TrevorLifeline: The only nationwide 24/7 crisis support hotline for LGBTQ+ youth
- TrevorChat: Secure instant messaging for crisis support
- TrevorText: Text-based crisis support
- TrevorSpace: A monitored social networking site for LGBTQ+ youth ages 13-24
But by the time I joined as Vice President of Marketing, I knew we needed to fundamentally reimagine how we approached our mission.
"A world where all LGBTQ+ young people belong."
That's the vision of The Trevor Project, the world's largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ+ young people, where Josh served as its first marketing vice president.
My Revolutionary Philosophy: Prevention Over Intervention
When I arrived at The Trevor Project, I brought with me a revolutionary philosophy that would ultimately transform not just our marketing approach, but our 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—I made this the organizational north star, fundamentally changing how we measured success and allocated resources.
The Strategic Opportunity
While the organization had historically focused on increasing crisis contact volume, I worked with leadership to develop a strategy that extended our aperture toward our ultimate goal: reducing the 1.8 million at-risk LGBTQ+ youth to zero. This required expanding beyond advertising our crisis communications to encompass a broader strategic vision.
Together, we identified the opportunity to build and maintain deep relationships with LGBTQ+ youth proactively. More importantly, we could intervene and build that bridge BEFORE any moment of crisis could occur—positioning Trevor as a protective space so youth never reach the crisis response part of our funnel.
My Strategic Framework: Redefining Success Metrics
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'—a complete strategic reorientation that I helped implement across all departments.
Unlike other nonprofits with concrete impact points, I recognized that measuring 'lives saved' from suicide prevention work meant we couldn't directly attribute marketing efforts to suicide prevention outcomes. Instead of trying to prove direct causation, I developed a measurement framework anchored 'one step up' by focusing on leading indicators that proved we were reaching the right people at the right moment.
Josh increased brand awareness among The Trevor Project's core audience (U.S. LGBTQ young people, aged 13-24) by over 40 percent in just one year at the organization.
My 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 our aperture beyond crisis response. I led the strategic decision to approach our goal through the lens of affirmation and joy—a fundamental repositioning that required executive alignment and organizational buy-in.
The Brand Positioning Evolution
This meant shifting our entire content strategy and opening our 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.
Working with leadership, we developed an expanded strategic vision that positioned Trevor as both a crisis resource and a thriving community. This required demonstrating how reducing our target of 1.8MM at-risk youth meant building relationships BEFORE crisis moments—a fundamental expansion of organizational aperture.
The strategic repositioning moved us from being an organization wholly focused on crisis intervention to one with that central mission but with prongs touching on affirmation, joy, and support. This fundamental shift changed everything.
The Results Spoke Volumes
The rebrand contributed to:
Increase in brand awareness within the first year
Brand partnerships generating over $60MM in charitable revenue
Brand Save award recognizing our impactful corporate collaborations
Laid the roadmap to helping LGBTQ+ young people thrive instead of being there for them to survive
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.
My Partnership Revolution: Strategic Positioning for Revenue Growth
How I Repositioned Trevor for Partnership Success
The rebrand I led became a catalyst for sales success across both corporate partnerships and individual giving. By strategically positioning us around joy and expression rather than purely crisis intervention, I made it significantly easier for brands to see themselves as partners in uplifting and reinforcing LGBTQ+ young lives, not just responding to crises.
My positioning strategy made our subject matter more accessible for co-branded partnerships and co-commercial ventures, opening doors that had previously been closed.
The Abercrombie & Fitch Breakthrough: When Strategic Positioning Meets Perfect Alignment
One standout example of my strategic approach was the co-commercial venture I helped develop with Abercrombie & Fitch. By repositioning Trevor around joy and expression, I created alignment between our mission and A&F's brand intrinsics, enabling us to conceptualize a gender-inclusive affirming clothing line that benefited The Trevor Project.
This partnership exemplified my strategic framework in action—the alignment felt natural rather than forced, demonstrating the power of thoughtful brand positioning.
Every year, Adweek honors one Brand Save award recipient, the magazine's annual recognition of standout work in the nonprofit sector. In 2021, Adweek recognized The Trevor Project as its Brand Save award honoree, highlighting the nonprofit brand's resonance, its engaging corporate partnerships, and most importantly, the organization's real impact on saving the lives of LGBTQ+ young people.
My Research-Driven Strategy: Beyond Traditional Marketing Frameworks
Leading marketing strategy in suicide prevention presented unique challenges that traditional brand marketing frameworks weren't built to handle. I recognized that talking about something as serious as suicide required nuanced approaches that most marketing strategies don't account for.
The Strategic Research Partnership I Developed
I partnered with a specialized team at Qualtrics who understood the complexity of what we needed to measure: How do we not only make LGBTQ+ young people aware of us, but how do we deliver that all-important recall during a real time of crisis?
The research confirmed my strategic insight—that reducing suicidality among LGBTQ+ youth required broadening our aperture beyond crisis response to affirmation and joy, becoming a protective space so youth never reach the crisis funnel in the first place.
The Expanded Impact Strategy
We broadened our approach beyond direct youth engagement to include the adults nearest to them—parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, and community leaders. By reframing our approach and giving key adults the tools to affirm LGBTQ+ youth, we repositioned our work toward creating a society that no longer necessitated our crisis intervention services at all.
This wasn't just aspirational thinking—it became practical strategy that informed how we allocated resources, developed programs, and measured success across all organizational touchpoints.
The Strategic Legacy
Moving from reactive metrics (crises handled) to proactive metrics (communities affirmed, adults equipped, preventive relationships built) transformed how we defined and measured success. This shift influenced every department, from program development to partnership strategy to resource allocation.
Our strategic approach earned recognition beyond just internal metrics. The Adweek Brand Save award acknowledged not just our partnerships, but our fundamental reimagining of how purpose-driven marketing could transform organizational impact.
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, we demonstrated that sometimes the most powerful impact metric isn't the end outcome you can't directly measure, but the leading indicator that proves you're reaching the right people at the right moment.
My Strategic Legacy and Lessons for Marketing Leaders
The strategic framework I developed at The Trevor Project demonstrates how marketing leadership can fundamentally transform organizational impact beyond traditional campaign metrics.
Key Strategic Insights I Developed:
Marketing philosophy can reshape organizational culture
The strategic insights I brought didn't just drive campaigns; they fundamentally reshaped our entire organizational mission and operational approach.
Prevention narratives unlock unprecedented partnership potential
My positioning strategy around 'thriving' rather than 'surviving' made us exponentially more attractive to brand partners seeking positive association.
Leading indicators trump lagging outcomes in impact measurement
The measurement framework I developed proved that when direct attribution is impossible, focusing on the right relationship-building metrics drives sustainable impact.
Joy and affirmation are strategic tools, not just emotional ones
My approach of introducing joy and affirmation in crisis-focused spaces became strategically essential for sustainable impact and organizational growth.
The Quantifiable Impact of Strategic Marketing Leadership:
- • 40% brand awareness increase within the first year of my strategic rebrand
- • 80+ brand partnerships cultivated through my repositioning strategy
- • $60MM+ in charitable revenue generated through partnerships I helped develop
- • Industry recognition including Adweek's 2021 Brand Save award for innovative collaborations
The Continuing Mission
The strategic transformation I led at The Trevor Project continues to guide their life-saving work, now with a foundation that balances crisis intervention with prevention, survival with thriving, and reactive response with proactive relationship-building.
My approach demonstrates how thoughtful marketing strategy can amplify mission impact far beyond traditional campaign metrics—creating organizational change that saves lives by building communities of support before crises occur.
For LGBTQ+ youth who continue to face disproportionate risks, The Trevor Project now stands not just as a crisis lifeline, but as the protective community I envisioned—working to create a world where that lifeline is no longer necessary.
TrevorLifeline: 1-866-488-7386
TrevorChat and TrevorText: Available at TheTrevorProject.org
"We're [aiming to] speak to LGBTQ young people today in a way that resonates, affirms and builds the trust and authority we need to push forward our mission," Joshua Weaver, VP of marketing at the Trevor Project, told Campaign US.
— The Trevor Project rebrands for the next LGBTQ generation
The Trevor Project rebrands for the next LGBTQ generation
Creative agency Kettle created the nonprofit organization's 'vibrant' new look.
By Mariah Cooper, Campaign • September 28, 2021
Read articleJosh Weaver (they/them) is a dynamic marketing and media expert with over fourteen years of experience driving impactful campaigns for major nonprofits and global brands. During their tenure as Vice President of Marketing at The Trevor Project, they led the organization through its most significant rebranding effort in over a decade, contributing to a 40% increase in brand awareness and helping generate over $60MM in charitable revenue.