The LightBox Collaborative’s work is driven by a deep bench of smart consultants. Jacks of all trades, our collaborators have worked with advocacy groups, nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and philanthropists; produced in print, on screen, and online; and stood on the front lines and behind the scenes.
Collaborators are dedicated to challenging organizations to go beyond good enough to attain the great.
Meet our players:
Holly Minch 
Holly has spent her entire career helping do-gooders do better. She offers moxie and know-how to help organizations realize a vision for a better society. Holly is a generalist who aids and abets good causes poised to leverage a shifting context to change the world in bigger, better, faster ways than ever before.
Her work has been honored by the Council on Foundations with a Gold Award for Excellence in Public Policy Communications. Holly was named by PR News as a “Young PR Star,” recognizing her as a PR leader and creative practitioner in the industry. She was editor of Loud and Clear in an Election Year, a guidebook created to help nonprofits convey their messages in the crowded election environment.
Holly’s experience includes her work as Vice President of Spitfire Strategies, where she created communications programs for grantees of the nation’s largest foundations, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Cynthia Scheiderer
Cynthia has been challenging the status quo from the get-go. When she was four years old, her parents kept a behavior chart. While they awarded her many gold stars for helping set the table, she got none for the item “Say ‘OK’ and not ‘Why?’” She never stopped asking “Why?” and — to her mother’s relief — she eventually learned to listen well for wise answers.
Now Cynthia taps her curiosity to help organizations understand, engage, and influence their world on issues that matter. For the past 10 years she has helped foundations, public agencies, and nonprofits engage in respectful, meaningful conversations. She asks insightful questions and listens carefully, while skillfully including multiple and diverse perspectives and interests in the conversation. She has helped community-based organizations and philanthropies tell their stories through projects that include research, community outreach, brand and messaging, policy, and content for a variety of media.
Cynthia believes clients are best served when consultants work collaboratively. She is proud to have been a part of LightBox Collaborative for the past two years, working with smart, creative, talented people forming teams tailored to each client and project. With LightBox Collaborative, she has worked on research, brand, messaging, and strategy for clients including the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, California Faith for Equality, Lutherans Concerned North America, the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, Venture Strategies Innovations, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Before establishing her consulting practice, Cynthia was a director of public affairs and communications at Casey Family Programs. There, she built a community outreach team, led the startup of a national consumer advocacy organization, and managed a portfolio of grants focused on constituency organizing. Previously, she spent seven years in the high-tech industry, including five years at Adobe Systems, during which she managed teams and initiatives in customer support, knowledge management, training, business development, and consulting.
Cynthia earned her bachelor’s degree in communication from California State University, Fullerton, and her master’s degree in adult education and training from Seattle University. She is a founding member of the board of directors of Foster Care Alumni of America and was recently recognized with their Vision Award. She and her husband and business partner Greg live and work in Seattle with two office cats. When they’re not working, they’re usually traveling by train, seeing a play, or keeping score at a baseball game.
Heath Wickline
Heath Wickline helps nonprofits tell their stories. He has spent the past decade helping nonprofits figure out who they need to be talking to, what it is they need to say to them, and how to do it with clarity, forcefulness, and style, all while staying within their budgets.
With LightBox Collaborative, Heath combines his talent for developing effective and engaging brands and messages with project management skills gained through working with hundreds of nonprofit organizations, foundations, and government agencies, including Earthjustice, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, CF Leads, and Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
Heath’s work includes the creation of communications plans, brand frameworks and messaging strategies, development of advertising campaigns, and production of publications, websites, and viral videos. He has also spent considerable time teaching nonprofit leaders how to communicate their values and tell their organization’s stories through workshops and trainings.
A native of Massachusetts, Heath lives in San Francisco with his wife and son, but still thinks there’s something not quite right about California baseball.
Alexis Weiss
What Alexis loves to do—and what she does best—is support those who are accomplishing extraordinary feats. She first developed this skill as a television producer for networks including CBS Atlanta, Turner, and Speedvision.
Feeling that those feats weren’t quite extraordinary enough, she turned her attention to the theatre, working as a stage manager and joining Actors’ Equity Association. Having managed everything from actors to chickens, Alexis then transitioned to nonprofit administration.
Alexis has spent the last seven years as a Development Director, raising millions of dollars for causes she believes in. Alexis is a past board member of Atlanta Nonprofit Professionals, a founding member of Collective Works, Inc., and a member of Theatre Bay Area, TCG, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
A relative newcomer to the left coast, Alexis lives with a Limey iPhone genius and what may very well be mistaken for a dingo. She holds a B.A. in journalism and a M.A. in nonprofit management from the University of Georgia. Because she is a glutton for punishment, she is currently working on another degree, this time in accounting.
Lauren Girardin
Lauren brings a passion for fixing what’s flawed to her work as a marketing and communications consultant. As a member of LightBox Collaborative, she helps nonprofits and foundations by using her grab bag of creative skills to move projects from strategy through implementation. With LightBox, she has worked with do-gooders such as the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation; the David & Lucile Packard Foundation; CompassPoint Nonprofit Services; Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund; and Movement Advancement Project. Outside of LightBox, Lauren also consults for TechSoup Global on the marketing of NGOsource, a service that will streamline international grantmaking.
Before jumping into the consulting life, Lauren was director of marketing and outreach at Full Circle Fund, where she built the brand and operations of the organization up from near zero. She first set off on her nonprofit path at Business for Social Responsibility, where she revamped the membership structure and wrote a wonky newsletter about corporate ethics issues.
Lauren has a B.A. — in chemistry, of all things — from NYU. She has extensive experience with communications strategy, online marketing (websites, newsletters, and social media, oh my!), copywriting and editing, governance, and leadership, and is also an accidental techie.
Lauren is a member of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and a proud former advisory board member of YNPNsfba (Young Nonprofit Professionals Network). She was honored in 2007 with a BoardSource Judith O’Connor Memorial Fund scholarship for emerging nonprofit leaders. She is a world traveler who dabbles in creative writing and photography and is predisposed to extroverted activities.
Amanda Cooper
Amanda is a strategic communications professional with more than a decade of experience in nonprofit and labor organizations. She is always challenging herself and the people she works with to ask the tough questions about their communications, making sure they are reaching the right people with the right message at the right time.
After many years working in house as a communications director and press secretary, Amanda now shares her know-how more broadly as an independent consultant and collaborator with LightBox Collaborative. She has had the honor of doing media relations, communications and brand strategy, and messaging work with clients such as the Ella Baker Center, Transgender Law Center, GSA Network, and Demos. Amanda thoroughly enjoys conducting trainings because they maximize the impact of what she has learned in her career — and really, what’s better than standing front of people and looking smart?
Previously she was the communications director for UNITE HERE, Workers United, and served in communications roles at the Brennan Center for Justice, the Children’s Village, Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, and SEIU-UHW. Amanda is one of the only people she knows who actually uses her undergraduate degrees, having studied communications studies and political science at UCLA. She currently lives in Oakland with her husband, daughter, and a lot of lemons.
Renée Alexander
Renée Alexander has been solving important problems since the tender age of seven, when she wore her uncle’s denim jacket as pants in order to ride on the back of his motorcycle. Subsequently, creative problem solving has been the secret to success in her long communications career. Her specialties reflect her diverse background in food, journalism, and social networking. Equal parts playful and geeky, Renée is at her best when making connections between people, ideas and resources.
She served as managing editor of a local weekly newspaper and ran one of the first online press release distribution services. As editor of Internet News Bureau, she developed and maintained relationships with foreign partners in seven countries who translated, localized, and distributed press releases in their respective corners of the globe.
Renée became a communications consultant in 2002, and since then has cultivated community for nonprofits and businesses on the West Coast and beyond. She has worked in the food and beverage industry on behalf of craft beer brewers and in the sporting gear industry on behalf of traditional and online retailers.
Her nonprofit experience includes supporting organizations working on public transit, public health, and many other forms of public good. Recent clients include Clif Bar & Company and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. As a member of Lightbox Collaborative, she has developed strategic communications plans for education reform clients, executed media plans for community organizations, and worked with scientists to craft compelling messages to help in the fight against malaria.
Each summer, she organizes an award-winning Family Fun Zone at a local county fair, which entertains hundreds of children for free for five days straight, much to the relief of their exhausted, overheated parents. After that, pretty much every project feels like a cakewalk for Renée. Well, except for her life’s ambition to get cheerleaders added to baseball. That one is proving rather difficult.
Isobel White
Whether developing strategic communications plans, managing outreach, or advocating for a cause, Isobel helps nonprofits be heard. She’s a seasoned writer, editor, and strategist who loves nothing more than helping an organization shape a compelling agenda for change. That, and being on the phone with media. Seriously.
Isobel has facilitated hundreds of high-visibility print, electronic, radio, and broadcast news stories on issue areas ranging from economic justice to education reform, and from Latino voting rights to same-sex marriage.
Formerly a communications director with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Isobel managed communications and media relations campaigns to fortify the organizing efforts of janitors, nursing home workers and other low-wage workers. She also worked with the Children’s Defense Fund and the ACLU of Northern California. Isobel has written for op-eds for clients that have appeared in top news outlets around the country. As a member of LightBox Collaborative, she’s been thrilled to work with Bridge to Success and the San Mateo County Health System.
Isobel’s academic background — B.A. in public policy from Brown University and M.A. in urban planning from UCLA — provides her with just enough understanding of policyspeak to translate it into language that resonates with grassroots constituents, journalists, producers, and bloggers.
When she’s not writing, pitching, or strategizing, Isobel volunteers at her daughter’s Berkeley public school, plots what to plant next in her garden, and cultivates equanimity.
Andrea Minadakis
Andrea believes in the power of a well-crafted story.
Most recently, Andrea provided a range of communications expertise to the public school reform focused Stupski Foundation, including internal and external communications planning, online community management and convening production.
Prior to her work with the foundation, Andrea served as director of marketing and public relations for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and the Horizon Theatre Company in Atlanta where she was responsible for developing strategies to increase ticket revenue, develop promotional partnerships and expand media coverage.
Andrea received her B.A. in government and dramatic arts from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. She currently lives under the redwoods in Mill Valley, CA with her husband, son and one very entitled feline.
Laura Peck
The right people + the right conditions + the right questions = breakthrough results. Laura is a passionate believer in the power of conversation to connect and mobilize people who want to make a difference.
A master facilitator, strategist, and coach, Laura helps innovative leaders get clear, get moving, and build vital organizations—from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to the San Francisco Community Music Center, the National Basketball Players Association to the California Public Policy Institute. She brings a mix of practical tools and resources and a bias for action. Clients and colleagues value her abilities to listen into what is emerging, engage diverse perspectives, and leaven hard work with laughter.
Her background includes internal consulting and health care policy and planning at Kaiser Permanente. She is a founder and principal of the Bay Area-based Claros Group.
Committed to continuous learning, Laura’s current focus is developing the next generation of nonprofit leaders, building adaptive organizations, and teaching yoga.
Christy Rilette
Christy has been called Librarian, Information Specialist, and Research Analyst, but is partial to Research Goddess.
Before getting her master’s in library and information science from Rutgers, she wanted to save the world. Her undergraduate work in sociology and women’s studies gave her insight into the social inequities of the world and how nonprofits can create real social change. She realized she could help people by doing research, and has since spent more than 10 years working for various organizations, such as the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Turner Broadcasting, Loyola New Orleans, and Tulane University.
Christy was born in Memphis and raised all over the Southeast, but now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, twin girls, and a very large mutt.
Olivia Raufman
Having spent her college years drawing, photographing, and otherwise making things (all the while earnestly working towards a degree in international studies), Olivia was trilled to discover, post-undergrad, the field of design. After stints in audience research and account management. Olivia was accepted into the rigorous Design and Art Direction program at Portfolio Center (PC) in 2002. At PC she learned that although design involves making things, it also involves relevant strategy, effective and honest communication, and above all, an obsession with Apple.
Following graduation in 2004, Olivia and her web designer husband, Matt, moved to Portland, Oregon, where they both had the good fortune to land jobs at Wieden+Kennedy. In a blur of late nights and excellent coffee, Olivia honed her design skills working for clients like Ivory, Coca-Cola, Oregon Tourism, and Eukanuba. Missing the sunshine, she and Matt returned to Atlanta in 2007.
Olivia spent two years at Atlanta-based 22squared before going out on her own in 2009. She strives to develop simple, distinctive design solutions that genuinely represent her client’s brand. Highlights from her design portfolio are viewable on Behance. A native of North Carolina, Olivia has, against all logic, come to love Atlanta. She and Matt live with their extra large and extra happy toddler, Luca, and their trusty mutt, Ollie.