Strategy for mission-driven organizations

Make the
mission undeniable

I help nonprofit leaders build the communications teams, strategy, and narrative their mission needs, especially when the organization is growing, shifting, or under pressure.

Start a conversation See the work
2 Decades in-house and in the newsroom
4 Continents reported from
1 Person you’ll actually work with
Stephen Fee on a Zoom call with President Obama and PEN America colleagues

With President Obama. PEN America Global Free Expression Campaign

“Most organizations don’t have a messaging problem. They have a structure problem that shows up as a messaging problem.”

What I Do

01

Team design and leadership hiring

Structuring communications and marketing teams, including how they work with development and policy, and recruiting the leaders to run them.

02

Communications and narrative strategy

For campaigns, launches, and issues the world has gotten wrong.

03

Executive communications

Speeches, op-eds, and counsel for CEOs and executive directors.

04

Change management and crisis

Internal communications and steady counsel through transitions, reorganizations, and hard moments.

Selected Work

Category Creation

Coining the term “educational gag orders”

When state legislatures moved to restrict what teachers could say and students could learn, the opposition needed a name with moral weight. I coined the frame that changed how the country talked about it, and how lawmakers legislated.

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Strategy and Change

Leading a national housing organization through federal pullback

As federal support for housing shifted and pressure mounted, I led communications for the country’s largest affordable housing nonprofit, building the strategy to protect the mission and the narrative for the change happening inside the organization at the same time.

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Public Education

Spot It. Check It. Stop It.

Led PEN America’s 2020 anti-disinformation campaign featuring Alan Cumming, Jennifer Egan, and John Lithgow. Proof that a public education campaign can be witty, far-reaching, and culturally resonant.

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Background

PBS NewsHour
PEN America
Enterprise Community Partners
Brennan Center for Justice
Physicians for Human Rights

Inside
experience,
outside
perspective

Stephen Fee

Stephen Fee

Founder, Stephen Fee LLC

I’ve spent most of my career inside mission-driven organizations, leading communications departments, advising CEOs and executive directors, and helping teams through reorganizations, leadership transitions, and crises. Before that, I was a reporter and producer at PBS NewsHour. That journalistic instinct, for truth, for tension, for the human detail that changes everything, is what I bring to every engagement.

Hard work doesn’t have to be miserable. The best results come from teams that are clear-headed, creatively alive, and genuinely energized by the mission. I’ve produced an in-depth interview with Barack Obama, navigated tense moments with federal administrations, and built digital organizing tools from scratch when none existed.

My practice is intentionally lean. You work with me directly, with a small bench of senior advisors when the work calls for it. And I hold to a stubborn belief: if we aren’t finding the joy in the mission, we aren’t doing it right.

Selected Coverage

CNBC Housing affordability is the number one issue in America right now ↗ Washington Post At least 238 writers and intellectuals were detained for their work last year, advocacy group says ↗ Fast Company This nonprofit is raising $250 million to help renters earn equity in their apartments ↗
Stephen Fee on location in Jerusalem with film crew
Stephen Fee at PEN America advocacy event holding Not A Target sign
Stephen Fee climbing the pyramids at Teotihuacan

Let’s talk about what’s next.

Whether you’re rethinking how your team is built, navigating a leadership transition, launching a campaign, or trying to reframe an issue the world has gotten wrong, I’d like to hear about it. And if I’m not the right fit, I’ll help you find who is.

stephen@stephenmfee.com

Also on LinkedIn