Unique Places to Save. September 2023 to present. Fractional CMO.
An outdated conservation nonprofit, rebuilt into the largest of its kind.
Unique Places to Save is an established conservation nonprofit that was held back by an outdated brand, a static website, and almost no marketing. Over about three years as its fractional CMO, I rebuilt the organization's digital infrastructure and ran it like a for-profit growth engine. The result is a market-leading B2B conservation brand growing across every core metric.
The work.
Each slot is labeled with the asset that goes in it.
The results
Measured from the September 2023 start to today:
- Social audience up more than 6,000% across LinkedIn, Facebook, and Bluesky.
- Restored stream miles up about 155% (roughly 2.5x).
- Conservation projects completed nearly doubled, up about 82%.
- Acres conserved up about 63%.
- Geographic footprint up about 59%.
- Stewardship (endowment) fund up more than 50%.
- Organic search grew from a near-zero base to consistent first-page rankings: six top-three keywords became 164 top-ten keywords in two years.
- Positioned as the largest US nonprofit holding mitigation conservation easements.
The starting point
Unique Places to Save had deep conservation expertise but no growth engine. The brand was outdated, the website was a static Squarespace page, and there was almost no marketing or outbound function to build partnerships or visibility.
What I built
I rebuilt the organization's marketing and growth infrastructure end to end and operated it like a for-profit:
- Rebrand and website: migrated from a static Squarespace site to a HubSpot-powered website with CRM pipelines and marketing automation.
- B2B growth engine, the biggest driver: organized, proactive cold outreach to mitigation banks to deepen existing partnerships and win new ones.
- Always-on content: a content engine producing three to four expert blog posts per month, distributed across channels.
- Social presence: launched and grew LinkedIn, Facebook, and Bluesky from a near-zero base.
Signature deliverables
- Watershed map (watersheds.uniqueplacestosave.org): a public, auto-updating fundraising tool that maps at-risk watersheds. Built in response to the Supreme Court's Clean Water Act rollback and the EPA estimate that up to 63% of US wetland acreage could lose federal protection, it makes the case for permanent private protection as the backstop. Already used to support a grant proposal.
- Wetland Keepers: a donor membership program built end to end, from the web page and fundraising platform to the HubSpot back end and the launch social campaign.
- This Week in Conservation: a weekly LinkedIn newsletter, five conservation stories per issue, with a subscriber base skewing to director and VP level professionals and academics.
- Appraiser toolkit (in development): an interactive toolkit for conservation easement appraisers, in partnership with the Appraisal Institute.
Where it stands today
A quiet, under-marketed nonprofit became a proactive, market-leading B2B conservation brand, now positioned as the largest US nonprofit holding mitigation conservation easements, with measurable growth across funding, projects, conservation impact, and audience. The engagement is ongoing.
My role.
Fractional CMO, September 2023 to present. I led the full rebrand and built and run the B2B growth engine.
The solutions this draws on: Branding, Marketing, Business development, SEO and AI search, Custom apps. Case studies. About. Contact.
Start with the free call.
Sixty minutes. I'll tell you what I'd do and what I think it's worth. Within 48 hours you get a written playbook you can run with or without me.