Team & COLLABORATORS

GINNY SIMMONS

Ginny Simmons is the owner and founder of Aglet Strategies, where she provides strategic communications and campaign guidance to hand-selected clients advancing human rights, civil rights, and other good causes.

Ginny has been a leader in public policy advocacy strategy, with a focus on communications strategy and digital implementation, for 20 years. She has provided strategic guidance to more than 50 local and national organizations while Vice President leading digital strategy for the global PR firm FitzGibbon Media Inc., and as a program officer at the Joyce Foundation. She has led in-house digital teams for the ONE Campaign, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (now known as Everytown for Gun Safety), and the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2005, Ginny created the first blog written by a death row inmate, an online innovation that generated national and international media attention and brought questions of innocence to light in the case. The man received a last-minute stay of execution. Ginny has crafted digital strategies that have generated hundreds of thousands of petition signers; raised hundreds of thousands of dollars online; broken through to national and international media, state legislators, the U.S. Congress, and the White House; and directly contributed to policy changes at the state, national, and international level.

Aglet Strategies services include campaign strategy, theory of change consulting, digital impact, media relations, story and op-ed placement, profile building, writing/editing, graphic design, branding, video production, communications program auditing and strategic planning, report production, website builds, TV booking, data analytics, and influencer outreach. Aglet Strategies clients have included American Civil Liberties Union - National and ACLU state affiliates in California, Colorado, and the District of Columbia, the Campaign for D.C. Statehood for the ACLU-D.C., the Black Girl Freedom Fund, D.C. Maternal Health Campaigns, Film Forward, #FreeSlahi campaign for Mohamedou Slahi, Grantmakers for Girls of Color, Just Beginnings Collaborative, Just Futures Law, Justice Action Center, Logic School, the MeToo+Philanthropy donor convenings, the National Immigration Law Center, New Public, NILC Immigrant Justice Fund, NILC Winning in the States Initiative, NoVo Foundation, Paid Leave for the U.S. (PL+US), the Safe Not Stranded campaign to end Remain In Mexico, Reboot, Seed&Spark, Together for Safer Roads, ‘The Tech We Want’ Infrastructure Fund for the Omidyar Network, and Youth First / No Kids in Prison.

Ginny grew up in New Hampshire, studied government and anthropology at Georgetown University, and lives in Washington, D.C. Growing up, her mom always insisted she tie her shoelaces so she wouldn’t ruin her aglets.

TIM RUSCH

Tim has worked on pressing social and political issues -- and the advocacy and policy communications related to them -- since he started working in public television in the 90s. Since then, he has worked with numerous organizations and social movements, focusing on issues such as voting rights and election access, racial justice, LGBT rights, financial reform, reproductive rights & health care access, corporate accountability, regulation, and regulatory reform, gun policy, prison reform, labor rights, and others. Since moving to New York in 2001, he has been a communications consultant/advisor to organizations and campaigns in policy reform and social change movements, served as Senior Vice President at the public relations firm Fitzgibbon Media, Communications Director at the think tank Demos, and Regional Media Manager at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lives with his partner and their dog Sally Field in NYC.

Recent and past clients and organizations Tim has worked with include The United Way of New York City, Alliance of Families for Justice, Interledger Foundation, Echoing Green, Bottom Line, The Drug Policy Alliance, NYC Anti-Violence Project, The END Fund, ROC United, V-Day/1 Billion Rising, Global Witness, Global Zero, Youth First/No Kids in Prison, Amnesty International USA, Color of Change, Grantmakers for Girls of Color, Ford Foundation, National Immigration Law Center, Caring Across Generations, National Domestic Workers Alliance, All Out, UNITE HERE, National People’s Action, The Opportunity Agenda, National Fair Housing Alliance, The City of Newark - Office of Economic Development, UMass Amherst - Political Economy Research Institute, Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, EveryTown For Gun Safety, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Second Chance on Shoot First, and many others.

ALEC SASLOW

Alec Saslow is a communications and media relations professional based in Colorado with a decade of experience working with nonprofits and public interest campaigns. Alec has managed communications strategy, messaging, partnerships, and media outreach for organizations focused on civic participation and voting rights, government accountability, economic inequality, immigrants’ rights, criminal justice reform, and environmental conservation.

Alec worked as a communications consultant in Washington, D.C. and Oakland, California, and has assisted a variety of issue advocacy organizations, including: the ACLU, State Voices, Consumer Reports, MapLight, National Immigration Law Center; Paid Leave for the United States, and Waterkeeper Alliance. Alec is an experienced writer of media relations materials and opinion pieces with a track record of shaping messaging to help clients break through and placing stories in high-profile outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and USA Today, among others.

Alec grew up in Colorado and studied journalism and public relations at Syracuse University before living in Ecuador, Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California. He's a formidable table tennis opponent as well as an avid runner and juggler.

trusted & frequent collaboratorS

Aglet Strategies works with carefully chosen, highly-skilled partners and subcontractors to best meet project needs and produce meaningful results. Among our most trusted and frequent collaborators:

Sam Herrick, Samantha Kate Design - Graphic Design, Report Layout, Illustration, and Photography

Thomas Crawford - Writing, Strategist, Social Media, Research/Analytics, Reporting and Insights

Josh Kalvin, Lone Pine Creative - Video, Design, and Animation to Break Down Complex Topics

Astrid Da Silva - Creative problem solver, strategist, communicator, and designer

Mercer Brockenbrough - Influencer Outreach to Elevate Social Media Campaigns

Henri Makembe, Campaign Strategy, Websites, Social Media, and Mobile technology