DFW Pug Rescue

Brand, Communications & Campaigns

DFW Pug Rescue is a 30-year-old, volunteer-driven organization rescuing pugs across the lower 48. I joined the board as Director of Communications and took creative ownership of the organization's communications, from brand direction and social strategy to campaigns, content, reporting, and organizational communications.

My Role

My Role: Director of Communications & Board Member

Scope: Brand, Creative Direction, Communications, Campaigns, Social, Content, Fundraising, Photography, Reporting

The Challenge

The brand existed. The system didn't.

DFW Pug Rescue already had an established logo, color palette, and basic social templates, but there wasn't much of a system behind them. Multiple volunteers and non-designers were creating and publishing content independently, which made the visual presence inconsistent, dated, and sometimes inaccessible.

The goal was to create a more intentional, recognizable, and credible creative presence that could still flex between serious medical fundraising, educational content, different events, pug photos, and the occasional ridiculous social post.

What I Owned

I took creative ownership of communications. As Director of Communications and a board member, I oversee the creative work across the organization, including:

Brand & Visual: Creative direction, visual standards, accessibility, templates, and creative oversight.
Digital: Social media, website, newsletters, and digital content.
Campaigns: Fundraising, foster recruitment, rescue awareness, and donor campaigns.
Content: Photography, copywriting, storytelling, and tone of voice.
Organizational Communications: Impact reporting, donor communications, internal communications, and communications processes.

Creative Direction

Recognizable at a glance.

I wanted the communications to feel intentional and consistent without making the rescue feel overly polished or corporate. The system needed to do three things:

Recognizable: People should be able to immediately associate the work with DFW Pug Rescue.
Consistent: Content should feel connected across channels and contributors.
Flexible: The system needed to work for everything from a serious medical fundraiser to a pug photoshoot to a completely ridiculous social post.

I tightened the visual language, introduced more intentional layouts and color contrast, and built a more flexible system for both informational and personality-driven content. I also encouraged fosters and volunteers to contribute real photos and video, giving the brand more of the actual people, pugs, and moments that make the organization what it is.

Social Growth

The creative changes showed up in the numbers.

I took full ownership of Instagram and expanded the approach beyond static updates. I introduced reels and trend-driven content, educational material, recurring formats, humor, and goal-based campaigns.

10K → 17.8K followers in one year

78% growth

The goal was to make the organization more visible, give people more reasons to follow, and create content that people actually wanted to share and interact with.

Campaigns

Foster Recruitment

We needed fosters. So I made asking for them more fun.

We needed to significantly increase the number of foster homes, but another generic “we need fosters” post wasn't going to do much.

I developed a recruitment campaign that made fostering feel approachable and fun while still communicating the real impact of becoming a foster. I owned the project end to end, including the audience and messaging, creative concept and tone, copywriting, design, and execution across social and digital channels.

IMPACT: 38 new foster volunteers in two months

Typical two-month average: ~10

Corporate Pug Warrior

I led the development of the Corporate Pug Warrior program as a branded corporate giving initiative designed to make it easier for businesses to support the rescue and stay engaged beyond a single donation.

I owned the naming, positioning, messaging, sponsorship tier structure, visual identity, website page, sponsorship packets, sales collateral, flyers, banners, event materials, social campaigns, sponsor spotlights, newsletters, emails, corporate giving and matching-gift content, and ongoing sponsor recognition.

The result was a professional, recognizable way for DFW Pug Rescue to attract and engage corporate partners while still maintaining the personality of the rescue.

Emergency Fundraising

When DFW Pug Rescue faced a critical funding gap, I helped lead the communications and creative effort behind the emergency fundraising campaign. The work required fast-moving messaging, social and email communications, creative development, and ongoing adjustments as the fundraiser progressed. I dedicated the weekend to traveling around DFW to visit our vet clinics and partners to go live to give people a behind the scenes glimpse into the work we do and why donations are necessary, and when I got home, made graphics and posted updates to keep everyone updated on progress. 7+ Directors sent in videos to be posted urging people for donations.

IMPACT: $142K raised in one week

Impact Report

30 years. No impact report.

After 30 years, DFW Pug Rescue had never produced an impact report. A lot of the information needed to tell that story didn't exist in a structured way, and there wasn't an established process for collecting, organizing, or communicating the organization's impact.

I built the first report from the ground up.

Data: Established a foundation for capturing and reporting organizational metrics.
Story: Determined the narrative, key highlights, challenges, and topics to include.
Content: Wrote the entire report.
Design: Created the charts, graphics, layouts, and visual system.

The result created a repeatable foundation for how the organization can collect and communicate its impact going forward.

Read it here.

Building the Function

The creative work needed structure behind it.

DFW Pug Rescue is a volunteer organization with limited resources and constantly changing contributors. Consistency can't come from having a giant communications department. It has to come from structure. Alongside the creative work, I've helped establish processes, document workflows, develop role descriptions, and create clearer ownership across communications and organizational initiatives. The goal is to make the organization less dependent on individual people simply knowing how things work and more capable of continuing the work as volunteers and responsibilities change.

I use AI (ChatGPT and Firefly mainly) to explore visual concepts, develop creative directions, refine copy, and quickly generate variations of campaign assets, including pug graphics. Many of the below examples show various the result of the AI ideation and final execution.

The Results

78% social audience growth
17.9K followers
38 new foster volunteers in two months
$142K raised in one week
$5K+ in new recurring monthly income
1 first-ever Impact Report
4 new partners