Notes
What we make,
and how we think
Notes on the work, the decisions behind it, and what is new with us.
The best time to plan for a crisis is the hardest time to think about one
The best time to plan for a crisis is before you need it, which is also the hardest time to think about it. These are the principles PILLAR comes back to most.
Why it's called a co-op
PILLAR pays people for their introductions, and anyone can earn a real percentage by making one. Here is why it is called a co-op, and why it is working.
What happens outside the walls
PILLAR's founder spent six nights on stage this spring with a New York Times bestselling author, and PILLAR is better for it. The same goes for everyone who does PILLAR's work.
What an audience actually believes
Most communications work decides on a message first and goes looking for an audience second. The Center for Public Justice asked PILLAR to run it the other way: ten months of a field's output, more than three hundred posts, ten anonymous interviews, and one finding nobody would have guessed.
Known by everyone, known well by almost no one
Very often, the people who carry the most care are the least likely to receive any. Writing for someone in that position is a different job than persuasion.
A decade of learning, pointed forward
Three Roots International reached ten years of work in Ethiopia in 2025. Ten years produces a great deal of learning, and the interesting question at a milestone is what you do with it.
From very far away, into your feed
World Hope International has been working on clean water, global health, protection, and emergency relief since 1996. That work happens very far from the people who make it possible. PILLAR is now their creative, communications, and marketing team, and the job is closing the distance.
The art was already on the walls
Lindsay Letters was thriving long before PILLAR arrived, with its art hanging in homes across the country. The job was to match the speed of a moving train and build the backbone underneath the email program and paid media.
PILLAR: Built on an old idea
A column profiled PILLAR's founder this week. It surfaces the thesis PILLAR is built on, an old idea that the industry stopped practicing.
PILLAR recognized at the 2026 SWaMmy HONORS
PILLAR was honored at the 2026 SWaMmy Honors, the Commonwealth of Virginia's annual recognition of small businesses that have shown the impact of state certification on their work.
Why we work with Bread for the World
A look at PILLAR's work with Bread for the World, the hunger advocacy organization we are honored to serve as agency of record.