Jennifer Baker, Communications Coordinator for Scott Carver Dakota Community Action Partnership, has a passion for communicating the mission of nonprofits to the public. In her seven years in the nonprofit sector, Jennifer has pursued new resources and tools to make it easier for organizations to clearly share their messages. As Communications Coordinator, Jennifer has been responsible for the CAP Agency’s annual reports and has taken them from traditional booklets full of long-winded financial information to vibrant and essential vehicles for spreading the Agency’s goals and mission. Jennifer is also experienced in coordinating social media and online messaging and using these tools to enhance fundraising efforts.

Jennifer Baker is Communications Coordinator for the Scott Carver Dakota CAP Agency, a private nonprofit dedicated to assisting and empowering people to achieve social and economic well-being in partnership with our community. Through more than twenty programs and services, CAP offers a comprehensive and collaborative path to self-sufficiency for families and individuals in need or in crisis in Scott, Carver, and Dakota counties in Minnesota. As Communications Coordinator, Jennifer finds new and engaging ways of communicating the mission and vision of the agency to the public and fostering relationships with community partners. This includes marketing, public relations, organizing community projects, and in-person outreach to local organizations. The CAP Agency relies on local partners to collaboratively address poverty and the needs of struggling families and individuals.

Receiving the 2019 Muse Award for our Annual Report is a significant validation of our work to spread the mission of the CAP Agency. Led by Jennifer, the CAP Agency has worked to find new ways to connect with donors, partners, and the public to expand support in the fight against poverty at the local level. This award distinction is a gratifying acknowledgement of that work.

For the 2019 Muse Awards, the CAP Agency entered our FY17 Annual Report. This report is the result of concerted effort to take the agency’s annual reports from traditional booklets full of long-winded financial information to vibrant and essential vehicles for spreading the Agency’s goals and mission. This new format has allowed the agency to use the report in new and dynamic ways. For this reason, we chose to submit it for the 2019 Muse Awards.

The biggest challenge for this project was taking the vast amounts of information usually found in an annual report and stripping it back to the essentials. The focus of the CAP Agency has always been on our clients and the impacts we are able to make in our community, which is reflected in the content of this project. Presenting these impacts in a visual and exciting way to the Agency’s partners has been extremely rewarding.

Jennifer has certainly found her calling in the creative industry of marketing and communications. Her path to this career was by no means straightforward. Her advice to anyone starting out on a career is to be open to new experiences. You never know what you will learn and where it will take you. Jennifer’s career has included the academic world of Political Science and Religious Studies, several positions in child care and early childhood education, work as a fitness instructor, the hospitality industry, administrative positions, and a brief stint as a bank teller. In each of these positions, Jennifer learned something that has helped to guide her to where she is today. Do not limit your experiences because they do not align with your planned career path. Life is unlikely to go where you expect it to anyway, and the most unexpected experience may turn out to be the most valuable.