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Maria Bryan
Speaker - I help changemakers tell impactful stories that do no harm by speaking about trauma-informed marketing
Professional Background
Maria Bryan is a dedicated nonprofit marketer with over fifteen years of experience in the nonprofit sector, where she has made significant contributions to enhancing the marketing strategies of various organizations. As the founder of Maria Bryan Creative, she has emerged as a prominent figure in the field, helping nonprofits utilize storytelling and marketing techniques to create meaningful change and impact within their communities.
Maria believes in the power of marketing when it is done with intention and purpose. Through her work, she emphasizes the importance of trauma-informed and ethical storytelling. This approach not only allows nonprofits to share compelling messages but also ensures that these narratives are respectful and considerate of the audiences they serve. By marrying persuasive communication with empathy, Maria enables change-makers to effectively engage with their communities, driving action and support.
A cornerstone of Maria's philosophy is her belief that successful nonprofits market on purpose. This dual concept means employing storytelling as a powerful tool for the greater good, while also maintaining clarity and focus in marketing efforts. She guides nonprofit leaders in recognizing their audience, setting attainable goals, and crafting compelling content. Her unique insights into marketing are further enhanced by her extensive experience in various roles within nonprofit organizations, where she has honed her skills in communications and digital marketing.
Education and Achievements
Maria's educational background is impressive and serves as the foundation for her impactful career in the nonprofit sector. She holds a Master's Degree in Executive Master of Public Administration from Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY), where she gained critical insights into public service management and policy. Prior to that, she graduated cum laude from Messiah College with a major in Journalism & Mass Communication, equipping her with a strong foundation in effective storytelling and media communication.
In her career, Maria has held various key positions that have allowed her to cultivate her expertise in nonprofit marketing. Her role as Marketing Director at Girls Leading Girls, Inc. allowed her to effectively lead marketing initiatives that inspired and empowered young girls. Additionally, her experience as a Digital Marketing & Content Specialist at Wethos gave her valuable insights into the digital tools necessary for modern marketing strategies.
Throughout her journey, Maria has also worked as a Senior Communications Manager at Public Health Solutions and as a Communications Manager at Charles B. Wang Community Health Center. These positions afforded her the opportunity to develop strategic communication plans and campaigns that positively impacted public health and community outreach efforts.
Maria's journey into the world of nonprofit marketing was also influenced by her time as a Community Health Educator with the Peace Corps, where she learned the significance of cultural sensitivity and ethical communication while working in diverse communities around the world. This experience profoundly shaped her commitment to ethical storytelling – making her the compassionate and thoughtful marketer she is today.
Key Programs and Services
Maria offers innovative services aimed at empowering nonprofit leaders in their marketing endeavors. One of her standout programs is Thrive Foundations, a specialized messaging retreat designed for nonprofit leaders. This comprehensive program blends training, marketing therapy, and collaborative messaging creation. By participating in Thrive Foundations, nonprofits gain essential components and tools to articulate their mission and goals through ethical storytelling.
In addition to group retreats, Maria also provides personalized consultations through Thrive Think, tailored for founders of small organizations on the brink of significant growth. During these intensive one-on-one sessions, Maria offers guidance on where to channel marketing efforts, ensuring that these burgeoning organizations can thrive and maximize their impact.
Through her commitment to training nonprofit leaders, Maria is fostering a community of changemakers who are well-equipped to tell their stories meaningfully and effectively. She believes that every organization can unlock its potential by implementing trauma-informed and ethical marketing methodologies, which ultimately lead to stronger connections with stakeholders and a more significant societal impact.
Conclusion
Maria Bryan is an exceptional nonprofit marketer, revered for her ability to empower organizations through purposeful marketing and storytelling. Her extensive background in communications, coupled with her passion for ethical marketing practices, makes her a leader in the nonprofit sector. Whether through her entrepreneurial endeavors or consulting services, Maria continues to illuminate the path for transformative storytelling in the nonprofit world, encouraging change-makers to create a brighter and more inclusive future. Maria is dedicated to making a lasting impact, and her commitment to helping others thrive is evident in all she does. If you are ready to elevate your nonprofit’s marketing strategy and share your organization's story with purpose, Maria Bryan is the ideal partner to guide you on that journey.
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.