nate@silvermaplestrategies.com
573.591.1990
Why Should You Work With Me?
Nate Birt
Founder | Silver Maple Strategies
When you are a nonprofit executive, every investment counts. I know and respect that.
So where can I provide you with value that you won’t find anywhere else?
Read on.
I Understand The Challenges
You Face
You Want To Win Farmers Over
—But You Don’t Know How
Let’s face it: Farmers are key to so much of the climate change work your nonprofit leads. Yet if you can’t engage them in their language, on their terms, your chances of success are vanishingly thin.
You need someone on your team who can help you modify your messages for a farmer audience. A collaborator who knows what it’s like to live, struggle, and succeed on the land. Someone who can speak farmer and translate that back to your team, your partners, and those who fund your important work.
Where I Fit In
I Help Turn Nonprofits’ Strengths
Into Farmer-Supporting Superpowers
Simply put, I help nonprofit executives navigate their farmer programming with empathy and action. You don’t have time to mess around experimenting. You need to bring your team, your resources, and your programming to authentically reach and support farmers on their journey—delivering climate solutions, implementing regenerative agriculture practices, and beyond.
Plenty of leaders feel ill-equipped to help farmers. They want to avoid preaching at them, educating them, or otherwise insulting their expertise, their intelligence, and their capacity to deliver extraordinary environmental solutions. I’ve been there, and I can relate.
My Unique Approach
Let’s Reimagine Your Talent And Programs
To Meet The Needs Of Farmers
There’s a saying that goes, “If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” You can’t simply dress up your existing marketing and communication assets and hope they’ll be sufficient for farmers. I can assure you, they won’t be.
Farming in the U.S. is an extraordinarily professional and nuanced business. It is enormous in economic and social impact. Its practitioners deserve the very best programs, products, and services.
If you want to serve this audience, invest in doing it right.
My Professional Experience
Six Years Accelerating Climate Solutions
And A Decade In U.S. Agriculture
I’ve helped executives build, fund, and implement complex climate-change programs with farmers for more than six years. I have worked in the agriculture industry for well over a decade.
I started in this industry with literally no experience in farming or food. And if this describes you, trust me, I’ve been in your shoes. It’s fun and a little daunting, right?
The good news is that you can grow your authenticity, effectiveness, and helpfulness to farmers.
I can help you and your team ensure that the journey is productive and rewarding.
Long-Term Partnership and Sustainable Nonprofit Growth
About My Communication Strategy, Business Development, And Advisory Services
My service offering is narrowly tailored to nonprofit executives whose climate-change programs can only be successful if farmers are front and center at every stage of the process.
I help my clients do right by these essential constituents via:
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Communication strategy
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Business development and fundraising support
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Fractional Chief Impact Officer advisory services
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Let me help you smooth out the edges of complex and often messy projects so you, your team, and your partners feel confident and capable of helping farmers.
My Personal Commitment
Let Me Tell You My Conservation Agriculture
Origin Story
If you didn’t catch this earlier, let me put a steel-toed point on it: I once had zero farming experience.
I graduated with a master’s from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and set my sights on city newspapers. I did stints for major publishers in Detroit and St. Louis.
Then my wife and I had children. As they say, the rest is history.
We moved to the country to raise our brood of four. I discovered the extraordinary and storied Farm Journal brand and served there for a decade. My roles included vice president of the America’s Conservation Ag Movement (ACAM) program. This awesome public-private partnership works with farmers as they take the next steps on their climate-smart agriculture journey. I am so honored to have served at Farm Journal that I dedicated my book “7 Secrets of Highly Effective Social Impact Communicators” to the team there. They taught me everything I know.
Now, my family and I live in rural America west of St. Louis. On our family’s farm, we raise chickens (broilers and egg layers), beef and dairy cows, and Thanksgiving turkeys, as well as fruits and vegetables. We feed ourselves and a few friends and family. It gives me tremendous appreciation for those who do this every day at scale.
Farmers aren’t a monolith. But almost without exception, they are the most generous people on earth. So that’s the spirit with which I run my business: Abundant generosity.
I learned my conservation and natural resources ethic from my Tennessee Grandpa James King. And my commitment to addressing climate change? Well, I want to do my part to ensure my children’s world is as vibrant as mine.
I’d be honored to work together to make your dreams for farmers and our environment a reality.