EcoRestoration Alliance

Communications Briefing

For the Comms Committee — Friday, April 3, 2026
Prepared by Comms Director Agent for Jon Schull

A note from Jon

Hi all — welcome back. It's been a few months since we last met, and a lot has happened. This briefing covers where ERA's communications stand, what's changed, and what I'd like the committee's input on.

Some of you already know about the AI communications agent I've been working with. It reads email at comms@ecorestorationalliance.org and drafts correspondence, research briefs, and materials like this report. Nothing goes out without my review. You can email it directly (cc me and it will cc me back).

Below you'll find:

Supporting materials are in the committee shared folder.

What the agent will not do: Send any email without my review. Make strategic decisions. Override committee direction on brand, tone, or timing. Contact anyone without explicit approval.

P.S. This cover note was written to my specs by Comms.

Briefing — What You Need to Know

Since We Last Met

Website & Digital Infrastructure

The AI tech team has built a staff website at era-website.onrender.com. It serves as our operational hub and includes:

Fundraising

ERA has seen its first non-trivial fundraising success through the Threshold Foundation network. Multiple donors have made commitments, with checks received and acknowledged. Several additional conversations are in progress. Strategy call with Threshold's Land & Climate circle is April 7.

"Cooling Climate Quickly" — The Paper

Our flagship whitepaper argues that conventional carbon accounting undervalues ecosystem restoration 4–10 fold by measuring nature's climate contribution in carbon rather than cooling. Jon's narrative version: "The planet is heating up because Earth's air conditioners are breaking down."

Bioneers Conference (Mar 26–28, Berkeley)

Spectacular event and community. Bioneers and ERA are deeply kindred organizations — their audience cares about exactly what we do, and our CCQ paper could help them better articulate the science behind their mission. Jon attended with glossy one-pagers and came away with 12 follow-up contacts across restoration science, municipal climate policy, and institutional partnerships. Exploring annual ERA presence at future Bioneers events.

Coming Events

DateEventComms Needed
Apr 7 Threshold Land & Climate strategy call ERA participation confirmed
May 7–11 GERC — Global Earth Repair Convergence, Port Townsend, WA
Theme: "Greening the Earth to Cool the Earth"		 ERA speaking slots (Sun 9am + 10:50am), ERA table, one-pagers, social media plan. Michael Pilarski has asked us to help promote through our channels.
May 22 Panama — pineapple plantation launch + university presentation in Panama City Executive summary in English and Spanish. Andre Dumoulin coordinating.
May 27, 3–5 PM ET ERA Annual General Meeting Past year review + new vision presentation. Flywheel model as framework.
Channel Inventory

All Known ERA Channels

14
Channels Found
3
Strong
4
Dormant
1
Missing (Newsletter)
PlatformURLFollowersActivityOwnerStatus
LinkedIn (Jon) linkedin.com/in/jonschull Large network Active Jon Schull Strong
Medium Blog medium.com/@ecorestorationalliance Unknown Active Ananda Fitzsimmons Strong
Website (staff/staging) era-website.onrender.com — Active CTO + Stefan Good — In Progress
LinkedIn Company linkedin.com/company/ecorestoration-alliance ~1,236 Moderate Leonard Good
Website (public) ecorestorationalliance.org — Active Wix Needs Consolidation
Google Groups (discussion) groups.google.com/g/ecorestoration-alliance Unknown Sporadic Jon Underutilized
Google Groups (updates) groups.google.com/g/ecorestoration-alliance-update Unknown Unknown Jon Underutilized
Instagram instagram.com/ecorestorationalliance ~189 Sporadic Leonard Needs Content
X / Twitter x.com/EcoResAlliance ~189 Dormant Leonard Dormant
Facebook Page facebook.com/EcoResAlliance ~91 Dormant Unknown Dormant
Facebook Group facebook.com/groups/... Unknown Unknown Unknown Needs Audit
YouTube @ecorestorationalliance6928 Unknown Unknown Unknown Needs Audit
Newsletter None — None Nobody Opportunity
Open Collective opencollective.com/... — Archived Nobody Archived
People & Roles

Communications Committee & Contributors

Diana Doheny

Committee Chair

Has been carrying the coordination load for the committee — scheduling, agendas, follow-through. Created ERA's first comms calendar. The Comms agent is designed to take over the operational burden so Diana and others can focus on strategy and content.

Ananda Fitzsimmons

Medium Blog Editor

Producing substantive, science-informed articles from named ERA contributors (read them here). ERA's best content channel and a natural anchor for an expanded content pipeline.

Leonard Iyamuremye

Social Media Manager (Paid)

Rwandan environmental activist, Youth4Nature ambassador. Posts across LinkedIn, Instagram, X, and Facebook. Has produced analytics reports (may need to be refreshed — the Comms agent can help with tracking and analytics going forward). Needs a better content pipeline to work with.

Cindy Eiritz

Volunteer

Ready to contribute. Could be a strong fit for a content writing program once it's structured.

Elhabib Benamara

Volunteer

Ready to contribute. Could be a strong fit for a content writing program once it's structured.

Brand Intelligence: Mary Olson & Stefan Killen

Mary Olson & Stefan Killen

Strategic Communications & Brand

Brand Intelligence leads ERA's narrative positioning, funder pitch deck, and brand identity. Stefan handles design and web development; Mary drives funder outreach strategy. They set the strategic direction; the Comms agent handles operational execution underneath.

Content Collaboration: Hart Hagan

Hart Hagan

Content Strategy — Active via BLC

Runs Climate Cafe (active Google Group with substantive discussions on biomass, regenerative agriculture, and climate policy) and a "Trees & Forests" course at BLC. Proposed a Content Marketing Team for ERA — students write focused 250–500 word posts about curated restoration content. Currently running a weekly Writer's Circle that Jon and Philip Bogdonoff participate in. The relationship is active through BLC channels; formalizing it for ERA is a natural next step.

Key docs: Proposal • Sample Links • Sample Posts

AI Comms Agent

Comms Director Agent

Operational Support

Drafts emails in Jon's voice, critiques copy, tracks contacts and follow-up deadlines, produces communications assets, and coordinates across agents. Reads and can respond via comms@ecorestorationalliance.org (always cc's Jon). All outgoing email requires Jon's review and approval.

Produced so far: Bioneers one-pager (40 glossy copies printed), conference talking points, event follow-up workflow, donor acknowledgments, co-author invitations, contact tracking system, this briefing, and a shared folder of committee materials.

Strengths

What's Already Working

Medium Blog

Ananda is producing substantive articles from named ERA contributors (Rob Lewis, Nathalie Fleming, Rob DeLaet, Judith Schwartz, Douglas Sheil). ERA's strongest content channel and a natural anchor for an expanded pipeline. Read the blog →

LinkedIn (Jon's personal network)

Jon's network is significantly larger than the company page. DM-gated event promotion (e.g., the March 16 Tony Rinaudo Spotlight) captures contacts and builds network simultaneously.

Town Halls

Biweekly events with speakers like Tony Rinaudo, Sallie Calhoun, and Neal Spackman. Honest assessment: attendance has been waning. Themed, well-publicized sessions with notable speakers draw strong turnout; last-minute or loosely-prepared announcements do not. The lesson: Town Halls need the same promotional rigor as any event — advance notice, speaker bios, topic hooks, reminder emails. The content pipeline (4 years of recordings) is a massive untapped archive.

BigMap

Unique asset with 4,500+ entries. Every new entry is an outreach opportunity. The "your project is on our Big Map" hook consistently earns replies.

"Cooling Climate Quickly" whitepaper

ERA's flagship intellectual contribution, now with co-authors including Brian von Herzen. Anchors donor conversations, policy outreach, institutional partnerships (BFI), and all upcoming events (GERC, AGM, Panama).

Event Follow-Up Workflow

Tested at Bioneers: Jon texts a name + context, agent drafts a personalized follow-up within 24 hours, Jon reviews and sends. Ready to generalize to every ERA event — Town Halls, GERC, AGM.

Opportunities & Challenges

Areas That Need the Committee's Attention

Opportunity No newsletter

ERA has no Substack, Mailchimp, or modern newsletter. Google Groups is the only broadcast mechanism. Every Town Hall, BigMap addition, and whitepaper update is content that should reach a subscriber list. This is the single highest-ROI gap to close. Recommendation: Substack — supports free + paid tiers, which maps to a recurring donor model. (See Discussion below.)

Opportunity No content calendar

Posts happen when someone remembers. Diana started a comms calendar — that's the foundation. Hart's content program could provide the pipeline. The Comms agent can handle scheduling and consistency. We need to bring these pieces together.

Structural Website subscribers

Many people have clicked "Subscribe" on our website. We need to decide: does subscribing mean the blog, the newsletter, or both? This is a decision for the committee — and it's urgent now that we're considering a newsletter launch.

Structural Social media workflow & analytics

Leonard is active and has posted across platforms, but regular analytics reporting may have lapsed. The Comms agent can help with tracking, analytics, and providing content for Leonard to post. We should also explore AI tools for social media management and scheduling. A clearer workflow — who posts what, where, when — would help everyone.

Needs Audit YouTube channel

Channel exists at @ecorestorationalliance6928 but activity level is unclear. Are Town Hall recordings being uploaded consistently? If not, biweekly sessions with world-class speakers are sitting in Zoom archives as untapped evergreen content.

Worth Discussing Dormant platforms

X/Twitter (~189 followers) and Facebook (~91 likes) are publicly visible but inactive. Options: revive them with content from the pipeline, or acknowledge they're not priorities and focus energy elsewhere.

Worth Discussing Member onboarding

20+ membership requests since Nov 2025, many unprocessed. No welcome sequence, no engagement funnel. New members arrive and hear nothing.

In Progress Two websites

Public Wix site (ecorestorationalliance.org) and new staging site (era-website.onrender.com) coexist. Stefan is working on branding for the new site. Consolidation is a brand decision — Stefan and Mary are leading this.

For Discussion

Decisions for the Committee

Newsletter: green-light it?

Platform (Substack?), cadence (monthly?), first issue content. Substack supports free + paid tiers — the paid tier ("ERA Sustainer," $5–10/mo) creates a recurring donor channel. Content already exists: Town Halls, Medium articles, BigMap stories, whitepaper. First issue could feature: CCQ lay summary + Bioneers connections + GERC preview.

Website subscribers: what are they subscribing to?

People have been clicking "Subscribe" on ecorestorationalliance.org. Does that mean the Medium blog, the new newsletter, or both? We need a clear answer before launching the newsletter.

GERC cross-promotion: what can we deliver by May 7?

Michael Pilarski wants ERA to promote GERC through our channels (blog, LinkedIn, newsletter, social). This is a natural first test for coordinated ERA communications. What's realistic?

Content calendar: who contributes what?

Diana's calendar as foundation + Hart's content pipeline + Leonard's social posting + Ananda's Medium articles + agent coordination. How do these fit together?

Hart's content program: formalize for ERA?

Hart's Content Marketing Team proposal could give Cindy, Benamara, and others a structured way to contribute. His Writer's Circle is already producing work. Should we adapt this model for ERA's channels?

Agent role: what's helpful, what's not?

The committee has seen what the agent can produce. What would be most valuable going forward? What should it stay away from? You can email it directly at comms@ecorestorationalliance.org (cc Jon).

Quick win: ERA bookstore for Earth Month?

Diana has 10 signed Tim Christophersen books. Could mount a simple bookstore on the website without waiting for the full redesign. April is Earth Month — good timing. Worth doing?

Channel Strategy

What Each Outlet Is Best For

All of ERA's outlets should carry a coordinated stream of content. But each platform has different strengths, audiences, and formats. Here's a preliminary analysis of how content should flow:

Channel Best For Audience Format Cadence Cross-Post?
Medium Deep science writing, thought leadership, SEO discovery Researchers, policy people, restoration practitioners Long-form articles (800–2000 words) 1–2x/month Excerpt to newsletter; link from LinkedIn and social
Newsletter (Substack) Subscriber engagement, donor pipeline, event recaps, curated updates ERA community, donors, interested public Curated digest (500–1000 words + links) Monthly Hub — links out to Medium, YouTube, BigMap. Cross-post to Google Groups.
LinkedIn (Jon) Network building, event promotion, personal thought leadership Jon's professional network (large, high-value) Short posts (100–300 words), DM-gated events 2–3x/week Unique voice — link to longer pieces elsewhere
LinkedIn (Company) Organizational credibility, member spotlights, institutional news ~1,236 followers — restoration community, funders Short posts, graphics, event announcements 1–2x/week Yes — adapted from newsletter highlights, Medium excerpts, BigMap stories
Instagram Visual storytelling — before/after restoration photos, field images, infographics ~189 followers — younger, visual-first audience Photos, carousels, short reels 2–3x/week Visuals from the same content, different format (not copy-paste)
X / Twitter Real-time commentary, conference live-tweeting, hashtag campaigns ~189 followers — media, policy, academics Short takes, threads, links During events; otherwise low priority Headlines and links from other content
YouTube Town Hall recordings, speaker clips, educational content, evergreen archive Search-driven — anyone looking for restoration content Full recordings + short clips (2–5 min) After each Town Hall + clip library over time Embed in newsletter, link from social, transcript excerpts to Medium
BigMap Outreach hooks, member engagement, visual proof of ERA's global network Prospective members, funders, conference contacts Interactive map + per-entry outreach emails Ongoing (every new entry = outreach opportunity) Featured entries become newsletter and social content
Google Groups Internal member discussion, broadcast announcements Existing ERA members (activity has been waning) Email threads As needed Newsletter cross-posted here for members not on Substack
Facebook Community groups, event promotion, older demographic reach ~91 likes — small, low engagement Shared posts, event links Low priority unless revived Same content as LinkedIn Company, adapted

Possible organizing principle: One content stream, many outlets. Each piece of ERA content (a Town Hall, a BigMap entry, a whitepaper update, a field report) should flow through multiple channels in formats native to each platform. The Comms agent can help with adapting and scheduling. Leonard handles community engagement and visual content. Ananda anchors the long-form writing. The committee sets direction.

Supporting materials in the committee shared folder: