SC2 Strategic Communications is a marketing and communications company based in Sacramento with 20 years of experience and an expertise in fundraising communications.
About SC2 Strategic Communications, LLC
Sarah Colwell, CEO
Awards
Best Periodical Writing, 2017
Best Marketing and Branding, 2017
Best use of Social Media/Technology, 2017
Best Branding Program, 2017
Grand Gold Award of Excellence, 2015
Best fundraising campaign, 2015
Best branding campaign, 2015
Best website, 2015
Best fundraising campaign, 2013
Who We Are
Sacramento, California-based SC2 Strategic Communications, LLC was founded in 2017 driven by a desire to help colleges, universities and other educational institutions throughout the country with their communications and marketing needs.
We have become a go-to communications professional for such clients as: UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, Sacramento State, Oregon State University, ScholarShare529, Jesuit High School and more. We have also helped small businesses and wineries with their sales-based marketing, as well as local officials with their election campaigns.
Our Passion
We are passionate about education and want to use our communications and marketing expertise to show how education transforming lives—both on a micro and macro-level—through writing compelling stories, ideating and launching marketing campaigns, optimizing websites, executing complex communications strategies and more.
We have the added benefit of providing services for key aspects of fundraising communications such as donor stewardship pieces, major gift announcements, alumni magazine writing and production, annual reports, proposal writing, case statements, appeal emails and letters, gift announcements, comprehensive fundraising campaigns, crowdfunding, planned giving writing, event communications, etc.
Our Value
This type of communications requires a special blend of knowledge and skill that few besides SC2 Strategic Communications have. We fully understand and are comfortable working within complex university structures and have worked with everyone from elementary schools to teaching universities to R1 research universities with medical systems. We know how to communicate effectively on any number of topics—from explaining complex scientific research to interviewing celebrity donors or managing PR for million or billion-dollar fundraising campaigns to creating communication strategies to elevate a diversity, equity and inclusion culture or unify a Division 1 athletics program.
SC2 Strategic Communications has experienced tremendous success helping numerous clients throughout the western United States.
More about our CEO…
Sarah Colwell is a nationally recognized communications and marketing professional with demonstrated skill in managing complex, high-level communication and marketing projects with multiple, varying deadlines.
She started her career in news media working for newspapers and television companies in California. Her husband’s Army career took her to Colorado, where she worked as a newspaper reporter for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Colorado Springs Gazette and then the Colorado Springs Business Journal. During this time, Colwell’s beats to included county government, small business, aviation, the chamber of commerce, economic development, tourism and banking and finance. She also wrote an award-nominated first-person series about her husband’s yearlong deployment to Iraq during 2014-2105.
Upon moving to Alabama, she transitioned into a public relations and communications role for higher education. She the University of Alabama, College of Letters & Sciences. Colwell then was hired by UC Davis in California to be the primary writer for their $1 billion fundraising campaign. Recognized for her talent, she was promoted to manager of campaign communications where she successfully led the university-wide communications and marketing strategy for UC Davis’ $1 billion fundraising campaign. Within a year of being manager, she was promoted again and her added responsibilities included leading the communications strategy for UC Davis’ fundraising office and its alumni association. She and team received numerous awards for their work and Colwell has been invited to be featured speaker at CASE conferences.
Colwell started SC2 Strategic Communications in 2017 and has successfully shared her marketing communications expertise with clients throughout the West Coast.
She is a highly effective consultant having years of experience building new departments, implementing system-wide processes, managing brand development and integration, and managing high-level clients who serve a variety of audiences.
Additionally, she is a capable writer with experience in journalism and media relations, fundraising marketing and communications, web writing, copyediting, magazine writing and production, script writing, social media management, crisis communications, internal communications, brand development and executive communications.
Most importantly, she is the mother of two wonderful children and the proud wife of a service-connected disabled veteran.
