This is marketing journalism.

Like any non-profit, Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego (CCDSD) relies on donations to support its community programs and services. CCDSD’s homeless shelters are particularly resource intensive. My mission as a writer and marketer was to drive donations.

Typically, journalism and marketing don't go together. One is objective. The other is persuasive. One is fact-based. The other is performance-based. I found my own way to meld the two by traveling and interviewing as a reporter to meet people in CCDSD's homeless shelters and hear their personal stories.

I recognize that using journalism for marketing is a slippery slope and good intentions only go so far. Every word, line, theme, connection, and included or excluded fact is deliberate and with discretion. The reason I feel comfortable walking the line is because my background is in journalism, my career is in marketing, and I respect the craft of storytelling.

More than writing assignments, these were life experiences—walking into a room of abused women who fear men, sitting on the streets with homeless people in downtown San Diego, waking up before dawn to go to work at a farm in El Centro, and witnessing the annual, nocturnal Farm Workers Appreciation Breakfast in Calexico. I met countless people who are living out stories that can be any combination of sobering, horrifying, devastating, uplifting, and enlightening. I’ve learned more from them than anything I could ever gain from marketing.