Daniel Meister, National Youth Council of Ireland:
Jean has worked with us on a long-term project to review and improve our full portfolio of digital activities. I have found her to be insightful and convincing when making the case for more strategic and effective working on digital. Our working relationship has been positive throughout the long journey towards a digital overhaul of a complex organisation. Working with Jean helps us keep up to date with best practice and her straight-talking, results-focused approach is a really important asset in a sector bedevilled by bluster and superficial sales pitches. I would strongly recommend her for any digital strategy and implementation work.
Gemma Britton, Head of Fundraising and Communications, Peace Direct:
We started working with Jean as part of a wider piece of work in which we are reviewing all elements of the digital ecosystem here at Peace Direct. With two of our strategic objectives being improved engagement and scale, Jean worked with the team to provide training and guidance on developing an engagement strategy for Facebook, with storytelling at its heart. As soon as we switched tactics we saw an increase in reach and engagement and those metrics have continued to grow. She has also helped us use Facebook to strategically grow our own email lists, and we have experienced a significant uplift in the number of contacts we can now communicate with outside of the Facebook environment.
Jean’s advice was focused, strategic, clear, practical and it is clear she brings years of vast knowledge and expertise with her. She has her eyes firmly on budget and delivering the very best long-term value for charitable causes, and her disciplined approach is well-rooted in insight and best practice. It’s this discipline that has helped us to move forward in great strides in a relatively short space of time, and I am confident we will continue to reap these rewards for many years to come.
Simon Scriver, Change Fundraising & Fundraising Everywhere:
The fact that I keep going back to Jean to work on project after project should say enough. She is one of the smartest people out there, with a creative knowledge of every digital tool I’ve come across. She’s repeatedly generous with her time, her support and her ideas in any piece of work we’ve tackled together. The resources she’s published for free are a permanent fixture in the packs I provide to my own clients.
Jean is fun, creative and brings more life to every project in a way that I depend upon, and that I find often lacking from the digital world. I’ll keep working with Jean, and I’ll continue to point others towards her.
Mairead O’Connor of The Wheel:
Jean O’Brien hosted a very popular Masterclass on Digital Campaigning at The Wheel’s Annual Conference. Jean has an excellent understanding of the sector and organisations’ needs, along with extensive experience and a real grasp of the digital landscape. Jean is easy to work with and provides quality content, engaged participants and great feedback from attendees.
Aidan O’Connell, Upwind Consulting:
I asked Jean O’Brien to assist me in putting a website together. She is brilliant to work with: clear, quick and concise. Other web designers made the process way too complex (and expensive!). Jean was able, in one phone conversation, tell me what she needed from me and she took it from there. Two weeks later I was ‘live’ with a simple user-friendly site.
Ruarai McKenna of Care2 on working with Jean and Digital Charity Lab:
Every country needs an Digital Charity Lab!
Representing Care2, I had the pleasure of collaborating with the irrepressible Jean O’Brien to deliver an Irish workshop on fundraising through online campaigning, and best practices around integrated campaign planning, execution and measurement.
This is an area I’ve worked in for 15 years around the world – I only wish that more countries had someone as dedicated to skill sharing as Jean, and a community spirit of practitioner collaboration modeled on Digital Charity Lab.
Online campaigning and marketing is a rapidly evolving area, so the only truly credible claim or path to ‘expertise’ is studying, sharing, and road-testing ideas, old and new – i.e. the very raison d’etre of the community Jean has built.