Brian Stack
Marketing leadership for mission-driven institutions

I market the things that matter.

Marketing and communications leader for universities, hospitals, and mission-driven organizations. 14 years of turning belief in a mission into enrollment, funding, and momentum.

Institutions I’ve served
Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation LASP, University of Colorado Boulder College of Nursing, CU Anschutz Medical Campus CU Denver YMCA of the USA Northern Illinois University
Why mission-driven work

Products sell. Missions move.

I could have spent my career selling products. I chose institutions instead.

Not because it’s easier. It’s harder. Universities and nonprofits run on complex governance, tight budgets, and audiences who can smell inauthenticity a mile away. But when the marketing works, the outcome isn’t a quarterly number. It’s a first-generation student who enrolls. A research mission the public actually understands. A parent in a hospital room whose worry is a little lighter because a stranger decided to give.

That’s the work I’ve done for 14 years: growing freshman enrollment at a public university while the entire state was losing students. Telling the story of a research lab with instruments on their way to Europa. And most recently, leading digital marketing for one of the nation’s top pediatric hospital foundations through a record-setting year of online giving. Different institutions, same throughline: marketing tied directly to the mission, measured against the outcomes that matter. Along the way: multimillion-dollar budgets, matrixed teams, agency rosters, and a seat at the strategic planning table, without ever leaving the work itself.

Proof

The numbers behind the story.

01~12%

Freshman enrollment surge at NIU, the largest in two decades, capping five straight years of growth

02Record

All-time online giving at a $75M+ pediatric hospital foundation, back-to-back years over goal

03All-time high

Inquiry and applicant volume at a top-ranked college of nursing

0414+

Years building teams, from student worker programs to full-time staff and agency rosters

Next

Let’s build something that matters.