3.3M VIEWS A YEAR · +109% GROWTH · 100% ORGANIC
Mark Lopez
I help mission-driven organizations grow their audience through community-centered storytelling.
For seven years I led social for a college-access nonprofit, taking an account that had never broken 100 engagements and growing it to 3.3 million views a year.
Open to communications and social roles in education and the nonprofit space.
Always happy to connect. Email me at marklopez.comms@gmail.com
CASE STUDY 1
AUTHENTIC STUDENT VOICES
I help college-access organizations by putting the mic in students' hands and building systems that turns their stories into engaging content.
1.5M+ TOTAL VIEWS · 300+ STUDENT STORIES · 80+ TAKEOVERS
College Graduations
Over seven years I produced more than 150 individual graduation features, each written from the student's own words. I ran them year-round rather than only in spring to keep the audience engaged off-season. The series performed reliably with our strongest post reaching 306,900 views.
College Acceptances
Each cycle I produced 20 to 30 individual acceptance features, turning each student's own survey answers into a personal celebration, then pulled them together into roundups for reach. The individual posts kept each celebration personal, and the roundups turned the season into a class-wide moment. In 2024 and 2025 these posts drew around 5,500 views each.
Instagram Takeovers: a Day in the Life of a College Student
I ran 15 to 20 student takeovers a year, handing the account to a scholar to show a real day in their college life while I briefed contributors and kept the brand on track behind the scenes. Those story frames averaged 600 to 700 reaches each, consistently beating our standard story content.
CASE STUDY 2
SCAVENGER HUNT
A gamified scavenger hunt designed to capture authentic student content at scale.
3x reach · 500+ stories · 50+ student creators
THE CHALLENGE
Capturing College Match's flagship East Coast Trip used to mean relying on hashtags and stickers, hoping students would tag along and that staff could track everything by hand.
THE SOLUTION
I designed a gamified scavenger hunt where each trip competed as a team, with student Media Captains running dedicated accounts and posting challenge entries all week. One week of student storytelling became a library of authentic content I pulled from year-round.
Students ran a dedicated account for each color team. Blue Trip alone posted 173 times in one week.
CASE STUDY 3
FUNDRAISING THAT MOVES MONEY
Running the social and visual engine behind a $450K scholarship campaign.
MY ROLE
I ran the social and visual side of the Harley Frankel scholarship campaign, owning the content, the campaign's social presence, and the donation experience that gave a major-gift push its public face.
Built the public face of the campaign. Planned and produced the full social series and designed the campaign graphics, so a quiet major-gift push had visible momentum people could rally behind.
Made giving frictionless and urgent. Designed the donation page layout and link strategy, then ran the matching-gift mechanics, the doubling and the countdowns, so every visit had a clear reason to act now.
Kept the whole drive moving as one. Timed social to land with the newsletter and posted progress as the campaign climbed, so the push hit donors from several directions toward a single goal.
MY APPROACH
Featured Projects
Matriculation Map
I designed College Match's college matriculation maps in Canva, visualizing where our scholars were accepted and enrolled across the country. I produced two versions each cycle, one tracking the incoming graduating class and one mapping every scholar currently in college. The maps translated raw enrollment data into a clear, shareable visual, with the Class of 2025 edition reaching 4,500+ accounts and driving 251 likes and 27 shares.
Welcome to College Match
Each year, I created the annual class welcome graphic celebrating every newly accepted College Match scholar, organized by their high school. The 2026 edition became one of our highest-performing posts of the year, reaching 19,000 accounts and earning 535 likes, 300+ shares, and 30 saves, roughly 4x our typical engagement. The post consistently grows year over year as one of our most anticipated celebrations.
Recruitment Campaign
I designed the recruitment timeline graphic and ran the supporting social campaign across Instagram and LinkedIn, using consistent, timely reminders to drive nominations. The effort supported College Match's highest nomination numbers to date, climbing to 1,123 nominations for the Class of 2027, up from 844 two cycles earlier. The campaign turned a key recruitment window into a steady, well-paced content push that kept eligibility top of mind.