About Caroline

Hi! I’m Caroline.

I’ve spent more than a decade helping organizations cut through the noise and connect with the people who matter most to them. From growing individual giving programs at Georgia nonprofits to leading a $22 million annual direct marketing program at Emory University. I’ve done the work, built the strategies, and seen firsthand what moves the needle.
 
Southern Grit Digital is what happens when all of that experience meets a genuine love for small businesses and the scrappy, creative people who run them.

Why Southern Grit?

Here’s the thing nobody tells you when you start a business: marketing is confusing. Really confusing. There are a hundred tools, a thousand opinions, and approximately zero consensus on what you should actually do first.
 
That’s the problem I’m here to solve. My job is to demystify the marketing process — to give you honest, practical guidance without the jargon, the upsells, or the one-size-fits-all templates. Whether you need someone to answer your questions over a one-hour call or a full-service partner to take marketing completely off your plate, I’ve built packages that meet you where you are.

A little more background…

Before founding Southern Grit Digital, I spent nearly a decade leading omnichannel marketing and direct giving programs in the Georgia nonprofit sector. At Emory University, I oversaw all direct response marketing campaigns, reaching more than 47,000 donors annually, managing everything from strategy and creative to data segmentation, A/B testing, and a $600,000 direct marketing budget.
 
Before that, I led development and communications at Mary Hall Freedom House (managing a $5M annual budget and $6M capital campaign), drove membership engagement at the Technology Association of Georgia with Fortune 100 companies, grew individual giving at Georgia Organics by over 20% year-over-year, and managed statewide school outreach for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
 
What ties all of it together: a deep belief that good marketing is clear, intentional, and built around the people you’re trying to reach. I employ a repeatable, testable strategy with my clients, helping them understand the “why” behind the marketing.

What I do for my clients

Today, I work with small businesses, creatives, and entrepreneurs across industries, including consulting, coaching, wellness, retail, and travel. My specialty is email marketing, from platform setup and list growth to newsletters, automated welcome sequences, and ongoing campaign management, but I bring a full-service perspective to everything I do. In addition to email, I also help my clients with content strategy and execution (both organic and paid), direct mail, special event marketing, and SEO copywriting.

I’m fluent in MailChimp, Klaviyo, MailerLite, Brevo, Kit, and HubSpot. I’ve helped clients navigate compliance, improve deliverability, build freebie funnels, refresh their brand positioning, and launch digital ad strategies from scratch. Whatever you need, I’m not going to hand you a template and disappear — I’m going to make sure it actually works for your business.