Chris Robinson served in the Peace Corps in Jamaica from 2007-2009 as a community development specialist. Based in the town of Glengoffe, Chris advised a local civic group and implemented a string of projects in agriculture, small business development, environmental engineering, and rural water supply. During the second year of his service, Chris partnered with agricultural extension officers communities across NE St. Catherine parish, helping farmers organize into functioning groups and embark on similar projects. He also acquired a cat.
He moved to DC in 2010 and joined a congressional office as a legislative fellow, overseeing a portfolio including international development and LGBTQ civil rights. He met returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) in many other offices in the House and Senate and together they formed the Peace Corps Congressional Staff Association in April 2011. He joined the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Washington, D.C. (RPCV/W) and oversaw fundraising efforts for the Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Event at Arlington National Cemetery.
In 2011, Chris was elected to the board of RPCV/W and tasked with reworking the association's website, communications structure and member management system. After researching a range of products, Chris chose NationBuilder and led a team of volunteers in introducing it to RPCV/W's 2,000 members. The transition was a success and Chris began learning front-end web development to further tailor the site to the needs of the organization. In 2014, he served as digital director for a mayoral candidate in Washington, D.C. and transitioned to full-time consulting.
Chris designs, builds and launches websites and digital tools for growing communities. His clients include volunteer groups, political campaigns and membership associations using NationBuilder to simplify their operations and mobilize their supporters. As a certified NationBuilder Expert and Developer, Chris loves helping clients plan for growth, create custom applications, interpret their data and move to the next step.
Chris is well-versed in HTML5, CSS/SCSS/SASS and the Liquid templating languages, which he frequently uses to expand stock website themes and create dynamic elements, though he occasionally dips into JavaScript libraries like React and jQuery when needed. He especially enjoys designing custom HTML email templates for NationBuilder and Mailchimp to make clients' messages stand out and generate engagement. Additionally, Chris encodes his sites with unique JSON-LD to apply Schema.org structured-data markup on targeted pages to help search engines browse them more efficiently. He also specializes in advanced analytics tracking with Google Analytics via Google Tag Manager, and A/B testing using Google Optimize. On the creative side, Chris uses Photoshop CC, Illustrator CS6, Inkscape, Canva and Sketchbook Pro to produce graphics.
Though he spends most of his time on NationBuilder, Chris stays up to date on a wide range of customer relationship and content management tools including Wordpress, Squarespace, Crowdskout and Shopify. He is always happy to discuss the finer points of event organizing, data management, web design and campaign tech. Since he serves on the board of two active nonprofits, he especially welcomes connections from fellow volunteer leaders in the DC Metro region.