Holly Minch

Holly Minch has spent her entire career helping do-gooders do better. She launched the LightBox Collaborative to harness fresh talent operating in an increasingly networked world. Her work has been honored by the Council on Foundations for Excellence in Public Policy Communications. Holly was named by PR News as a creative practitioner in the industry. She was editor of “Loud and Clear in an Election Year,” a guidebook created to help nonprofits convey their messages in the crowded election environment.

Minch frequently speaks for nonprofit and academic audiences alike, and her efforts to launch the LightBox Collaborative are featured in Chris Guillebeau’s book The $100 Start Up. Holly co-created and for 20 years led The SPIN Academy. This important communications training and talent-development effort grew out of the SPIN Project, of which Holly was director. Holly’s experience also includes her work at Spitfire Strategies, where she created communications programs for grantees of the nation’s largest foundations. Starting out as press secretary for the Sierra Club, Holly Minch alternately did battle with and cozyied up to the Washington, D.C. press corps. She was primary contact for the national media, and created national, regional and local campaigns.

Holly serves on the board of directors of the Center for Artistic Activism; she has previously served on the boards of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the Center for a New American Dream, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, and the Green Media Toolshed.

Because she wanted to be an English teacher when she grew up, Holly holds a B.A. in English literature and language from the University of Southern California. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.