About

My love for the desert influences my personal life, aesthetic preferences, and research methodology.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, 2020

The heart of narrative ethnography is to enable organizations to own their own narrative.

A woman with dark skin and braid hairstyles, smiling and wearing a black top, posing against a plain gray background.

My Story

I grew up connected to the nonprofit sector before I had language for it. As a youth, I was active in a local arts nonprofit. I knew the founders; they were my downstairs neighbors, and I babysat their children. I was one of over 50 youth who showed up every day to practice my craft. I watched firsthand the personal and financial sacrifices leaders made to keep their doors open.

I dedicated my career to that world. Twelve years in nonprofit marketing and communications, working with regional and national organizations, driven by a passion for creating access and removing barriers. However, I continued to experience burnout. I also kept noticing the same pattern repeat: leadership conveying one story, staff telling another, marketing using language that doesn’t align, and supporters describing something entirely different.

When my position was eliminated, I faced a decision about what to do next. I chose to stay in the sector. I wasn’t fully recovered yet; however, I finally understood the problem from within and realized that burnout was not a personal failure to fix. It is, however, a design flaw that no one is naming: narrative chaos.

Organizations that scale individuals instead of building the proper narrative infrastructure will burn out quickly. This practice is my response to that.

My Formation

I'm a narrative ethnographer and applied anthropologist with an M.A. from The New School for Social Research. My connection to anthropology began early. During my undergraduate studies at Syracuse University, I minored in anthropology and participated in a semester-long research seminar on religion and society in Brazil with Dr. John Burdick. That experience influenced how I view organizations: as living systems of meaning, not merely operational structures.

My practice draws from qualitative research methods, institutional analysis, organizational development, and nonprofit management concepts, giving me both the methodological rigor to diagnose narrative chaos and the sector fluency to understand what it costs organizations when it goes unaddressed

I am a certified Nonprofit Lifecycles capacity builder and a member of the Association for Research for Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).

My Practice

The Content Jeannie exists because narrative clarity is the foundation for everything else. Marketing, fundraising, programming, and board governance. They all of it suffers when the mission statement hasn't defined the criteria for success. I embed myself in organizations, listen to the people who make the work happen, and build the infrastructure that allows everyone to operate from a shared organizational reality.

This is not consulting from the outside. It's discovery from within.

Meet the Team

  • Cartoon drawing of a girl with glasses and a headband riding a bicycle with the letters 'L' and 'A' on the wheels.

    Jeannie Smith, M.A.

    My love for the desert shapes how I work: slowly, attentively, in conditions that require patience. I've traveled across the U.S. and internationally. I do not have my license (yet!). I'm a self-proclaimed intermediate cyclist and survival-proficient in Portuguese, French, German, and Norwegian.

  • Gray long-haired cat with yellow eyes lying on a black surface indoors.

    Jar Jar

    VP, OPERATIONS

    Focused, approachable, and motivated by treats, Jar Jar is a quiet but loving, gentle giant who keeps our operations running smoothly. He is both a leader and a napper, somehow finding the perfect balance between work and relaxation!

  • Close-up of a gray tabby kitten lying on a bed with a floral pattern, looking at the camera.

    Binks

    MARKETING DIRECTOR & FOREVER INTERN

    At two months old, Binks was championing our brand, leading Zoom(ie) calls between 9:30 pm and 6:30 am. But he still has a lot to learn, figuring out the basics, and unnecessarily picking on his older brother, Jar Jar (who approves his timesheets).