Story strategy and messaging alignment for mission-driven organizations
Your audience knows it too. Birchwood helps you close the gap between who you are and how you've been showing up in the world.
Book a Discovery Call"Plenty of agencies will take your money and grow your impressions. We'd rather help you figure out what you're actually saying."Valerie McGowan, Founder
How We Work
Most marketing conversations start with what people see first — a new website, a new campaign, new materials. Each one built on a story that was never properly articulated.
Birchwood works the other direction. We start from the inside first: who you actually are, what you actually believe, and where your message and your reality have drifted apart. We believe the most powerful story emerges from that discovery, and we build everything from there.
The Work
Identity first. Story second. Expression third.
Identity
It might seem odd to start here. But, over time, organizational mission can shift and drift. The result is a team that no longer knows how to talk about itself. Bandaid fixes like new campaigns, new branding, and better content won't solve this at the root.
We enter at the beginning. Through facilitated sessions with your leadership team, we close the gap between your mission and how you've been describing it, and produce a story framework your entire organization can speak from. The work is internal before it is ever external.
Story
Knowing who you are and being able to articulate it are two different things. Most organizations have the identity. What they're missing is how to tie the heart of who they are with language that actually works — positioning, messaging architecture, and a throughline their team can use.
We identify your target audience and how to best reach them. We take what was found in the Identity phase and translate it into words that work. The result is a story framework your team can speak from without us in the room.
Expression
Once the foundation is in place, we build. Birchwood and its network of specialists — documentary filmmakers, brand designers, and content strategists, each working at the highest level of their craft — translate your story into the content and media your organization needs to reach your audience effectively. Because the foundation work came first, everything that follows has something real to say.
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."Maya Angelou
About Birchwood
Faith-rooted imagination. Clarity without reduction.
We ask questions most strategists won't, sit with complexity most processes skip, and help you find what's true before we tell you how to say it. We care about helping you spend every dollar wisely and in full integrity with your mission.
Valerie McGowan is an award-winning producer and executive producer who spent over a decade working alongside some of the best creative teams in the world, on campaigns for Emmy Award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted films, Hollywood studios, and nonprofit organizations.
She learned what it takes to make a story reach people at the highest level. And she kept watching mission-driven organizations — the ones doing work that actually matters — pour money into websites and campaigns built on foundations that were never properly laid.
Birchwood exists because of that gap. Not between organizations and their audiences, but between who organizations actually are and how they've been showing up in the world. Valerie built a practice around closing it, inside-out, every time.
The Collective
Birchwood doesn't work alone. When a project moves into Expression, we bring in a curated network of specialists — documentary filmmakers, content strategists, and brand designers — each chosen for the standard of their craft and the depth of their collaboration. Every partner we bring is someone we'd stake our name on.
Birchwood works with a small number of clients at a time. If this resonates, let's find out if we're the right fit.
Book a Discovery Call