Lindsay J.K. Nichols

Lindsay J.K. Nichols, vice president of marketing and communications at America’s Charities, works to drive social change, professionally and personally. She is a seasoned communications strategist whose work has spanned the nonprofit, corporate, legal, healthcare, consumer, and government sectors for 20 years. Lindsay specializes in dynamic social purpose communications, digital marketing, traditional/social media, media training, grassroots and crisis communications, branding, and message development. Her work has helped impact public policy, change people's behavior, and live healthier, more equitable lives.

A member of the organization’s senior leadership team, Lindsay oversees B2B inbound marketing and strategic communications efforts that increase America's Charities' brand visibility, recognition, and earned revenue, as well as supporting the initiatives of their nonprofit members and employer clients. She serves as the project lead for America's Charities' original Snapshot research, including the latest Snapshot Employee Donor Research report, detailing U.S. employees' workplace giving, volunteering, and CSR expectations, values, and preferences.

Lindsay is serving as judge of the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Corporate Citizens Awards, in the Best Community Improvement Program category, in 2021, as she did in 2019 and 2018. She has been a judge of the Washington Women in Public Relations’ (WWPR) Emerging Leader Awards. Lindsay has been featured in the Whole Whale podcast, “Understanding Workplace Giving with America’s Charities,” and the inaugural Van Eperen/Capitol Communicator “Communicator Spotlight” video series.

Most recently, Lindsay served as the senior director of marketing and communications at GuideStar, the world’s largest source of information about nonprofits. She managed a team of 10 responsible for executing the nonprofit's mission to gather and share the world's nonprofit data to drive better decision-making. Lindsay served as GuideStar’s lead on the Overhead Myth and Money for Good campaigns and was its national spokesperson.

Prior to GuideStar, Lindsay was a consultant with leading global public relations firms Ogilvy PR Worldwide, Metropolitan Group, MSL, and Levick Strategic Communications. There she worked with some of the world's largest brands including Best Buy, Heineken, Eli Lilly and Company, and National Geographic, as well as some of the most impactful social change organizations including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Pre-K for All DC, School-Based Health Alliance, Land Trust Alliance, GoodWeave International, and the Stroke and Nursing Research NIH Institutes.

She began her career at the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) where she handled media efforts for the ASCE/FEMA report, “Why the Towers Fell,” about the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, the five-part PBS special Building Big about some of the world's architectural marvels, and the Report Card for America's Infrastructure, about the nation's failing structures.

Lindsay has garnered front-page coverage for her clients, as well as being quoted herself, in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Philanthropy, NonProfit Times, St. Louis Public Radio, Dallas Morning News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Content Marketing for Nonprofits, Nonprofit Communications Report, and more. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Communications and Women’s Studies from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego. Lindsay is a founding board member of the nonprofits Youth Rights Agency of Western New York and Social Media for Nonprofits, and a former board member and volunteer of Safe Shores, the DC Children’s Advocacy Center. In 2006 she was president of WWPR.

Lindsay lives in Ashburn, Virginia, with her husband, daughter, and cats. Her goal is to make the world a better place, one word at a time.

More from Lindsay:

• Check out Lindsay on this episode of The Nonprofit Growth Show podcast, produced by Nonprofit Megaphone. She talks about her favorite things: nonprofits, branding, marketing, data - and impact.

• Listen to her on the Whole Whale podcast, "Understanding Workplace Giving with America's Charities.”