Who is Monica Thompson?

Monica Thompson is a strategic communicator with over three years of personal and professional experience in the fields of community development and content marketing. She combines her passion for civic development with a formal education in interactive journalism to help nonprofit organizations cultivate their voices, build healthy online communities, and expand their reach across real-world neighborhoods.

Since earning her graduate degree, she’s continued to enrich herself with work in community development, marketing research, content marketing, videography, public relations and product development. She currently is a self-employed consultant for her own business, Interactive Panda. She combines skills in press relations, social media, content management and website development to tailor unique marketing strategies for businesses, state agencies and nonprofits in Nevada.

Social Good

Monica has always been passionate about community outreach, participatory democracy, animal welfare and human rights. She’s proudly worked with a number of local, national and international nonprofits, like: Nevada Humane Society, Northern Nevada International Center, Healthy Communities Coalition, Silver Springs Coop, Urban Roots Garden Classroom, Gold Coast Animal Defense League and the Women’s Refugee Center of Newcastle. As an impassioned individual with a hefty conscience, Monica is constantly moved to participate in intrinsic projects that betters her community.

One of her most recent projects involved creating an online presence for Community Roots – a rural nonprofit and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project. Since one of the biggest problems facing rural Nevadans is access to healthy foods, the goal for Community Roots is to provide rural Nevadans with local, healthy food delivered to their doorsteps. The website helps support both farmers and healthy communities in rural Nevada. In partnership with Community Roots and Healthy Communities Coalition, Monica recently launched her own educational website: TheWeeklyVeg.com. Her mission is to show people how easy (and painless) it is to cook with vegetables.

Monica has also recently worked with Urban Roots Garden Classroom, a Reno-based non-profit that seeks to promote garden education within the Washoe County School District. She’s consulted with organizers there to better promote their mission online, and connect with youths across various multimedia verticals.

Monica has always been passionate about promoting cultural awareness and developing positive international relations. Since earning her undergraduate degree in Australia, she’s actively pursued worthwhile international programs and projects. She recently returned from a two-week, State-Department-funded program called Young Turkey/Young America. As one of twenty representatives from the United States, she met with a number of Turkish politicians, journalists and students. Together they discussed a number of democratic challenges facing Turkey, and brainstormed ways in which the country could become one of the leading democratic nations in the Arab Spring region. Monica is currently working on an international project with a Turkish English professor from the city of Kirsehir called “Global Roots: Connecting Farmers in Reno and Kirsehir.”

Tech

Monica is very passionate about tech startups. She’s currently the marketing research and community outreach manager for Council Watch. Council Watch is an independently developed city-council tracking application designed for concept testing in Reno, Nev. Council Watch combines classic city council agenda summaries with an interactive component that allows users to vote, follow and comment on current city issues. Council Watch was awarded Best Application of Open Source Data at the 2011 Hack-4-Reno competition – where Monica was a part of two application teams. Her second team’s application The WHAT was awarded as a Finalist for Best Application of Social Media.

Monica is well versed in multimedia journalism, CMS website development, Microsoft and Adobe suites and Final Cut Pro, which she uses to produce professional and freelance projects. She is comfortable in HTML and is currently learning CSS. Monica truly enjoys learning innovative technologies.

When Monica isn’t busy learning innovative technologies and saving the world one collard green at a time, she is most likely watching her favorite bands, in the gym, cooking or play soccer. Monica is a self-proclaimed lifelong learner who is never satisfied. Thus, she is always searching for the next big challenge or life-changing experience.

Monica Thompson is a wonderful medley of cross-pollinated talents and skills, and is a pretty rad human to boot! If your business needs help building cool products or a unique online presence, contact her at:

monica at monicacthompson.com

or

monica at interactivepanda.com