I have been involved with nonprofit organizations focused on sustainability since 2004. In this field I have been able to use and expand my skills and experience in all other areas including web content, marketing and promotion, project management and event coordination, office administration and customer service. I also gained valuable skills such as working with state and local government, writing successful grant applications, acting as media liason, giving engaging public presentations and more. In addition, I have been a certified permaculture designer since October 2006, receiving my training with Janet Millington in Eumundi, Queensland, Australia.

In July 2007, I founded a small nonprofit organization in Australia called SustainaBundy. The community group is working for a sustainable Bundaberg with a focus on the concept of relocalization - reducing consumption and producing locally. In the year and a half that I was with the organization, I coordinated a number of small projects including a "permablitz" (the permaculture version of a backyard makeover), local meat and produce member bulk buys, several movie nights, garage sale parties, meetings and presentations. I also successfully helmed two major projects:

The 2008 SustainaBundy Directory and Guide: how to live a GREENER life in & around Bundaberg was a self-published 100-page sustainability guidebook for the region. I wrote many of the articles, coordinating with the authors of other articles and handling all of the editing. I wrote a successful application for funding to cover printing costs and sold and created many of the ads in the publication, managing one salesperson and liasing with all the advertisers to ensure that the publication paid for itself while raising funds for SustainaBundy. I also managed all of the layout, design, graphics and photography in the publication, as well as marketing and promotion of the guidebook through local radio, newspaper, events, presentations, meetings and local retailers. The guidebook became a standard of sorts, with organizations all over the world and even some city councils requesting copies to be used as a blueprint for their own efforts.

I also managed the successful organization and execution of the Bundaberg 2008 World Environment Day Celebration. The needs of a wide variety of stakeholders had to be met within a very short timeframe: just three months! Heading up a committee of 8 and with a very small budget consisting entirely of donations and successful applications for grants from local NGOs, businesses and the city council, I was able to coordinate an event with over 20 participating exhibitors, 5 live bands, numerous presenters and over 700 attendees - on a heavily rainy day! With shrewd planning and massively coordinated volunteer efforts, several hundred dollars of the budget were donated to nonprofit organizations participating in the event, rather than being spent on the event itself.

With SustainaBundy I liased with all forms of local media (print, radio and television) and wrote regular press releases, newsletters, mailing list sendouts, flyers, brochures and more. As a result SustainaBundy appeared on the local television news, in all three local newspapers, on every local radio station and in regional magazines on a regular basis. I was able to grow SustainaBundy membership and alliances by giving regular presentations to community groups throughout the region, including the business women's network, the tourism association, the chefs' association and a variety of environmental groups. I engaged local government employees, city councilors and state representatives in open dialogue about sustainability issues affecting the Bundaberg region, thereby bringing a number of powerful allies into the SustainaBundy fold.

Prior to starting SustainaBundy I worked for an international nonprofit called Post Carbon Institute as Operations Manager of their online public service broadcasting initiative, Global Public Media. In this position I was able to combine my broadcasting skills and my web development skills - not only was I researching, conducting and editing interviews (click any of the links below for examples) and delegating editing and transcribing duties to other employees and volunteers, I was also managing and maintaining many of the organization's websites on a daily basis, as well as compiling, laying out, editing and sending electronic newsletters to 5,000-10,000 subscribers each month via PHPList. Click here to view a sample newsletter.

• Interviewing Australian climate expert Tim Flannery (4 min 42 sec mp3)
• Interviewing Dr. Albert Bartlett, professor emeritus of Physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder (38 min, 38 sec mp3)
• Interviewing former Queensland Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, Andrew McNamara (21 min 42 sec mp3)
• Interviewing permaculture co-originator David Holmgren (15 min mp3)

In addition to working in the sustainability field, for 18 months I lived sustainability, quite intensively, on 20 acres of bushland in rural Queensland, Australia. Building a passive-solar designed strawbale house with off-grid solar electricity, solar hot water, a composting toilet, rainwater catchment as the sole water source, and extensive organic permaculture food gardens. In the process I learned a great deal about low-impact, environmentally sustainable living, current technologies and ancient ways.