Prime Contractor Solutions

I offer my solutions to CDFI sector prime contractors and nonprofits that are procuring strategic impact communications consulting services to facilitate fulfillment of requirements under government funded programs. That includes awardees under Biden administration programs for clean energy, affordable housing, and small business development. 

I subcontract with your organization to offer transformative impact storytelling that reshapes narratives and engages core audiences for CDFI loan funds and their nonprofit partners. I customize my communications strategies to maximize your outreach and engagement in underserved communities.

The overview below is an expanded version of my capabilities statement, which is available on request.

• CDFI Sector Strategic Communications: I offer expertise in crafting and executing comprehensive mission-aligned messaging plans that support your key organizational goals while resonating with community stakeholders.

• Content Strategy and Editorial Direction: I develop targeted content strategies promoting your key leaders' thought leadership and amplifying your organization's impact stories. For those strategies, I create and optimize high-impact cornerstone content that is consistent, high-quality, and enhances your organization's visibility. I also provide guidance on social media, email marketing and other promotional tools and tactics.
• Authoritative Sector Resources: I can produce well-researched, substantive and insightful white papers, reports and academic papers on sector lending issues and community impacts. I also can help you with grant narratives and annual report content that convey your organization's impact and accomplishments in a way that can draw investors, donors, and other key stakeholder support.

• Experienced Finance Journalist: Award-winning journalist with over 25 years of industry experience for well-respected and recognized media outlets. My work focuses on financial inclusion and facilitating financial literacy for groups that may lack access to the information, therefore to capital.
• Highly Educated Professional: I'm a doctoral researcher at the University of Southern California in the Rossier School of Education's Organizational Change and Leadership program where I'm studying the history of racialized capitalism and inequity in the banking sector. I also have a master's in corporate communications from Georgetown University, where I emphasized narrative change around racialized people in the financial industry. 
• Commitment to Equity: I concentrate on supporting organizational initiatives with my communications solutions that bridge racial wealth disparities, democratize capital for all LMI groups, and promote environmental justice. I understand the nuances of reaching underserved communities.
• Cultural Competence: I have lived experience in LMI and racialized communities related to financial and housing discrimination and environmental racism. That allows me to offer an astute cultural understanding of the effects of systemic marginalization and help reshape colonized narratives about low-wealth and racialized Americans.

Most recently, I've worked with BlueHub Capital SUN on strategic impact communications strategy for the foreclosure prevent nonprofit and its CDFI lending partners.  

It's one of multiple nonprofits I've worked with over my 25-year career either as a consultant helping clients grow their businesses as I did with the Urban League of Atlanta. I served as a communications leader for the Junior League of Atlanta helping raise funds and lobbying to fight child sex trafficking in the city. 

I serve on boards chairing the communications committee of The Nicholas House in Atlanta in the 2010s. Today, I'm the Communications Chair on the board of directors of with Dr. Traci's House in Tampa, FL, a clinic that focuses on health equity and environmental justice in low-income neighborhoods there.

I've also had multiple successful collaborations with top financial institutions on high-impact projects over the past 10 years that have built on the sector expertise I gained as a professional finance journalist before and during that time. Those finance sector clients include Northern Trust FlexShares, where I created content related to ESG investing and The Mortgage Reports where I wrote extensive mortgage lending, affordable housing, foreclosure prevention content for the high traffic industry blog.

Over the past several years, I've regularly contributed business financing, operations, and development content to American Express Business Class. My intention with that content, most of which I pitched, is to help small business owners expand their infrastructure and build wealth.

As your strategic communications partner, I offer an unparalleled combination of relevant expertise, exceptional education, and lived experience as a racialized American. I possess a rare depth of insight as a communicator in this sector into the challenges and aspirations of the constituents you aim to empower through your social justice investments and lending. This allows me to craft strategic communications plans that present narratives that genuinely resonate with those core stakeholders. 

My consultancy is an approved vendor qualified to support federal government contracts. That allows me to serve seamlessly as a subcontractor and provides a streamlined path for your organization to procure my strategic communications services. Get in touch today to learn how I can support your prime contractor requirements.

(c) 2024. Dahna M. Chandler for UpThink Strategic Communications, Inc., a division of Thrive Media Collaborative, Inc. All rights reserved. This page content may not be reproduced or reposted in whole or in part or used for AI applications without express written permission from the author.