About Watershed / Who We Are

An experienced online fundraising, advocacy, and marketing consultant, speaker, and author, Madeline has led internet strategies for many organizations, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, CREDO, The Nation, Ocean Conservancy, Amnesty International USA, the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, Earthjustice, Human Rights Campaign, the Humane Society of the United States, ACORN, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and CARE.

Until mid-2006 Madeline was the President and Creative Director of Donordigital, a full-service online agency which helps nonprofit organizations, campaigns, and socially responsible businesses use the Internet to build their constituencies and achieve their goals.

Madeline is a frequent speaker and writer in fundraising, advocacy, and technology conferences and publications across the country. She is a trainer and adviser to the New Organizing Institute, and co-convenes Web of Change, an international annual gathering that connects global leaders in online communications, technology, and activism who are actively building a better world. She is the author of The Mercifully Brief, Real World Guide to Raising Thousands (If Not Tens of Thousands) of Dollars with E-mail, published by Emerson and Church. You can get your copy here.

Madeline has been raising money, organizing, and communicating for organizations and causes for 20 years, not counting her second-grade campaign for George McGovern. She served as director of individual giving at Health Access, a statewide health advocacy organization in California, and as Public Information Officer for the Alameda County Health Department (Berkeley, Oakland). Madeline was the executive director of Access to Software for All People (ASAP), a youth-run Web development business run as a non-profit social enterprise.

Madeline holds a Masters of Social Work from San Francisco State University. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Scott Connolly, and two rescued greyhounds, Daisy and Scout. Together, they run a pretty fun and funky inn at the end of the world on Mendocino’s north coast.

Watershed’s Executive Vice President Jenn Smith previously served as Vice President of Donordigital and led the strategic work and campaign development for organizations such as UNHCR, CARE, The Humane Society of the United States, Girl Scouts of the United States and The Human Rights Campaign. Jenn’s reputation has been built around delivering top-notch client service, thoughtful and effective strategy, and spectacular results for her clients and their programs.

Prior to her work in the world of online fundraising and advocacy, Jenn spent over 9 years in the non-profit sector where she worked in both public policy and program development, and led membership and individual giving programs. Her intimate knowledge of the challenges and opportunities facing non-profits is key to her ability to understand her clients’ needs and help them achieve their goals online. When she’s not staying awake at night planning the next big campaign (sadly, this is true) she’s cooking up a storm, making homemade sourdough bread, and drooling over beautiful produce at her local farmer’s market. (Yes – she’s yet another Watershed foodie). Her dream client would be an organization working on building local and sustainable food communities – is that you? E-mail Jenn here if you are interested in working with us!

Heather is a Senior Account Executive who arrived at Watershed after supervising projects on civil liberties and technology for the Consumer Federation of California. She’s since worked with a slew of kickass groups at Watershed, including CREDO Action, The Nation and The Humane Society of the United States.

She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Global Studies from UC Santa Barbara, where she plugged into the community media scene as Associate News Director for KCSB-FM. Progressive politics are in her genes, but her path to the world of fundraising and advocacy was solidified by an eye-opening semester in DC behind enemy lines, being goaded (unsuccessfully) by CATO and the Heritage Foundation to stop worrying and love the free market.

Heather is a cellist, cyclist, amateur urban farmer (ask about her chickens!), compulsive public radio podcast listener, and an occasional contributor to the blog Feministing. She does yoga and has a predilection for gourmet local cuisine and overpriced coffee, thus fulfilling her contractual obligation as a resident of San Francisco (see Stuff White People Like numbers 1, 15, 91). She’s Watershed’s canary in a coal mine, which might explain why she sometimes has an uncontrollable urge to shout at the sight of birds and other wildlife in the Financial District.

In early April 2007, Ellen opened her own 1950s-era diner inside Watershed’s offices, where she serves up assorted flavors of advocacy and fundraising campaign ideas, four-star email and landing page implementation, and free toothpicks.

Ellen comes to Watershed from the world of freelance graphic design and publications consulting for non-profit organizations, a business she started in 2004, shortly after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a bachelor of arts in English with Creative Writing Emphasis in Poetry.

When she’s not at work, Ellen does more work. Ellen is a workaholic. She also drinks too many iced espresso drinks, writes poetry, paints bottles, plays acoustic guitar, attends women’s college basketball games and rugby matches, and recently began work on her first children’s book. Having moved into the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco with her wife Cathy, Ellen has become convinced that, if they live there long enough, they will acquire puppies and/or babies by osmosis.

Mark, Watershed’s Research & Data Director (and resident rabid member of the notorious Oakland A’s fan base), grew up as an Air Force brat, splitting time between Nebraska, Virginia, and Florida. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree in Sociology at a sleepy state college on the banks of the Rappahannock River, he traveled through Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central America, rooting for the Baltimore Orioles all the way.

Long before coming to Watershed, Mark had tours of duty with various nonprofits and healthcare organizations including the California HealthCare Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, the Center for Applied Local Research, and Access to Software for All People, where he managed the data business (with Madeline no less!). He recently earned a Certificate in Non-Profit Management at a sleepy continuing education school on the banks of the San Francisco Bay.

Mark is a jack of all sports and master of none, regularly playing in casual leagues of all types, including soccer, softball, basketball, and baseball. Let him know what games you play, especially if it’s one he’s hoping to branch into – like rugby or lacrosse, (where constantly running into other people isn’t frowned upon.)

Mark is an Account Executive at Watershed, and he is a grateful citizen of liberal San Francisco.  Mark likes to read and write, which is nice. He also likes to make hula hoops and decorate things with the shiny hula hoop tape. Sometimes Mark likes to take a special kind of hula hoop, dip it in gasoline, light it on fire, and spin it. These things are also quite nice, especially in the dark.

Mark was born in Dayton, Ohio. He has a Bachelor of Art in Creative Writing from Ohio University, and he is a proud graduate of the New Organizing Institute. In 2007, Mark was voted the “Coolest Person in Athens County” by readers of the Athens News; his newfound celebrity was overwhelming, so he ran away to join Watershed and live in peaceful obscurity of the wild west. Nevertheless, he was voted runner up in the same category in 2008, despite the fact that he lived thousands of miles away from Athens County.

The year was 2009, the location was the thriving metropolis of San Francisco. And on that cold November day, out from the depths of the city emerged a web developer. He would be the one chosen… to become the Production Associate at Watershed. He helps clients by building campaign websites and sitelets, and by forcing arcane CMS systems to display clean, clear designs that please client and donor alike.

A native of California, Tom graduated from Cal State East Bay (formerly Cal State Hayward) in 2006, majoring in Computer Science, and minoring in Multimedia and Electronic Art. Surprisingly, some of his education actually turned out to be useful for his career, and in some of his spare time, he can be found looking up the latest web design tips and trends, and learning the best ways to create pages that display exactly the same across browsers and platforms.

When he’s not doing that, he can generally be found somewhere in about a three hour driving radius of San Francisco, with his camera. Prone to take more than a hundred pictures in just a single afternoon, Tom estimates that he has taken more than 40,000 photographs since he got his first digital camera in 1997. He refuses to estimate what percentage were blurry.

Brian joins the Watershed team after working as communications and online director with the League of Young (formerly the League of Pissed Off) Voters in Portland, Maine. Before using the web to make young people political players with the League, Brian did everything he could to make those “peace through music” bumper stickers ring true: in 2003 he helped the band Phish launch a national voter registration drive and continued arts-based activism with HeadCount through 2004. 

Brian holds a degree in Environmental Sciences from Northern Arizona University and while working as a fisheries biologist in Northern California, he decided he wanted to swim upstream for change alongside humans, not salmonids (nor Phishheads). He earned his Masters in Environmental Advocacy and Organizing from Antioch University New England, where he also TA’d two classes - in Nonprofit Leadership and Globalization & Democracy.

When not working, Brian enjoys capturing the pedestrian with photos and essays (and photo essays). He also likes riding bikes and hiking, making bad jokes good and the Boston Red Sox.

Nzinga initially stumbled into the wonderful world of the Web after graduating from Williams College with a double major in Studio Art and History. A veteran of the Bay Area dot com boom and crash, she has honed her expertise via ten years of hands-on internet, software, and strategy experience working with a variety of nonprofits and companies ranging from start up to corporate giant.

Nzinga is a veteran strategist and project manager with a nonprofit and commercial technology, political, and communications background. Prior to joining Watershed, she was a lucky member of the project management team at the groundbreaking nonprofit consulting and technology firm Carol/Trevelyan Strategy Group (CTSG).  After CTSG was acquired by Kintera (now Blackbaud), she led the web implementation project management practice in the company’s politics division.  While at CTSG and Kintera she led projects for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, California gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly, Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, among others.

Nzinga was raised on the quintessential 1970s California vegetarian fare of nuts, twigs and tamari-seasoned tofu, and now has a predilection for meat-free haute cuisine and an interest in food politics. She spends an inordinate amount of time eating, and when she is not eating, she tends to think, speak, write, and read about food. Send your restaurant and recipe recommendations to her.

Diane was born on a very long island in the Atlantic. She wended her way to Watershed through several classrooms, libraries, and nonprofits. Happy to be back in San Francisco after two years in the US Peace Corps, Diane is no longer sure what she does in her free time.

When Kathryn was in 6th grade she started a “Save the Whales” club at her school. She believes that they probably saved at least one small whale via the butterfly effect. She’s been active in various nonprofits ever since. She comes to Watershed with a background in online marketing, and specializes in writing and project management.

Kathryn has a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion with minors in psychology and English. She received an M.F.A. in creative writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She likes: aquariums, cognitive science, puppets, poems, anthropology, large bodies of water, folklore, riding in cars, naps, whales, linguistics, playing the piano and the Giant Australian Cuttlefish. She dislikes: when people block the doors on the bus, courtroom TV.

After spending her formative years in and around the Chesapeake Bay, Kate got her degree in Comparative Literature from Brown University, where she studied Proust and Mother Russia. After a stint in the New York media world — where she worked as a copy editor, movie reviewer, and publishing minion — she drove to California, lured by the promise of sunshine and good avocados. She now lives in a mountaintop cabin in Berkeley, where she can look down on all of her coworkers from her porch.

When not out crusading for the common good, Kate spends her time jaywalking, running up mountains, telling tall tales, and devising get-rich-quick schemes. She is almost always hungry.

Will has been helping progressive nonprofits develop and implement online advocacy and fundraising campaigns since 2005. He spent three years at Donordigital handling everything from drafting copy to designing landing pages, crunching numbers to creating strategy. Along the way, Will was lucky enough to work with great organizations like The Humane Society of the United States, Human Rights Campaign, and the Campaign to Defend the Constitution.

Will embraced the world of nonprofit fundraising after a brief stint at a title company threatened to turn him into Bartleby the Scrivener. Before that, he majored in English with a Creative Writing emphasis at Stanford University, which probably explains the references to Bartleby the Scrivener.

When not being a nerd at work, Will enjoys being a nerd at home. He reads and writes comic books, indulges a serious addiction to crossword puzzles, and plays bass guitar with a spectacular lack of talent.

After graduating with a BA in graphic design from the Academy of Art University (then the Academy of Art College), Leanna put in a few years at the Diablo Valley College Inquirer, racking up over a dozen design, cartoon and editorial awards from the Journalism Association of Community Colleges during her tenure as editor-in-chief, news editor, copy editor and photographer.

Leanna then spent over a year as art director, production manager and webmaster at AsianWeek in San Francisco, laying out almost the entire paper every week as well as helping out with the AsianWeek Foundation, writing a few headlines and cutlines, and acting as fridge monitor. Leanna also had an on-and-off 7-year tour of duty as a sign artist at two different Trader Joe’s stores. (She currently gets her journalism ya-yas out by writing about food, events, and food events for The San Francisco Appeal.)

When not in SF for work, Leanna’s in SF for theatre. When not in SF, she’s probably in a theatre somewhere around the globe. In March 2009 she saw three West End musicals and then had the honor of spending the entire flight from Heathrow to SFO with a hairbrush bristle jammed in her thumb. (Kaiser’s minor injury clinic was very kind upon her return.) In February 2010 she traveled to Australia, saw a few musicals, and fell in love with Monteiths… which is not a musical.

Leanna was born and raised in a low-key, hilly, grassy area of the (very East) Bay Area and now lives in an apartment on an island with two human roommates, two feline roommates and a globe of pet shrimp.