Meet Taylor.

Taylor Nelson

Founder

As a mixed methods UX researcher, I am passionate about understanding user needs to inform solutions that drive business impact and align with organizational goals. I'm a skilled manager of cross-functional teams and an expert navigator of complex project challenges.

Innovative Strategist

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System Designer

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Digital Creator

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Coffee Aficionado

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Innovative Strategist 〰️ System Designer 〰️ Digital Creator 〰️ Coffee Aficionado 〰️

Prior Experience

Solutions Journalism Network

Promoted four times in eight years, I have designed and developed increasingly complex tools, resources, and systems that have helped SJN tell its story and increase it’s budget ten fold, while enabling thousands of people to be part of an online community passionate about solutions to social problems.

  • • Strategized with the other members of the Executive Leadership team to build consensus around new projects aimed at improving workflows across teams.

    • Hired, developed, and managed a high performing team of 15 people with different experiences, perspectives and skills. Helped each person grow and succeed.

    • Developed and managed an annual budget of $1 million (organization-wide budget of $9 million).

    • Managed complex projects and delivered measurable results on time and within budget. Created a culture of data-informed learning across the team and a standard of better defining the challenges at hand and measuring results of the ideas that are implemented.

    • Spearheaded the creation of a multilingual version of SJN's Solutions Story Tracker, a searchable database featuring the best solutions reporting from across the globe. Oversaw the sourcing, vetting and tagging of 250 stories in 12 languages over 15 months.tion text goes here

  • • Directed program-level strategies and objectives, sustaining strategic consistency and flexibility while supporting staff and contractors in making smart decisions that help them meet these objectives.

    • Led strategic news consumer-focused partnerships and their resulting products and engagements. Identified opportunities for new partnerships with high impact potential, while strengthening relationships with existing partnerships

    • Exponentially expanded the Solutions Story Tracker from 680 to 12,000+ stories, 323 to 6,900+ journalists, and 131 to 1,500+ news outlets featured.

  • • Received a $500,000 grant to create the Knowledge Dissemination program and two digital platforms, the Solutions Story Tracker and SolutionsU, the former a searchable database of solutions stories and the latter a resource-rich teaching tool.

    • Coordinated and executed a listening tour of 100+ people from 50+ universities in 2 months. Conducted 30 one-on-one interviews, initiated 4 campus listening circles, and led 3 design sessions.

    • Developed and executed a formal beta test of 40+ people, and distilled findings into a report and actionable next steps.

    • Managed the brand development and content management system for SolutionsU.

    • Coordinated a campus tour across 4 states in 5 universities with 6 workshops and 300+ participants.

    • Created the hiring, orientation, and training process for SJN's first database team, managing a team of 7 through a 3-month long process of curating and tagging 1,400+ stories.


Education

College of William and Mary, B.S., Sociology, 2009-2013


Tech Skills

Salesforce | Canva | Figma | SquareSpace | DataStudio | Asana | Slack

 

Keynote Speech

Why We Need Solutions Journalism?

Global problems dominate our news headlines - but why don't we hear about the solutions? Speaking from Reuters HQ at Future News Worldwide 2019, Taylor Nelson tells the story of the Solutions Journalism Network.

Interested in Collaborating?