It’s been a bit of a journey from niche craft titles to the world of corporate responsibility, but Good2Give’s new Head of Marketing Communications Lyndal Stuart feels like this is exactly where she wants to be right now.

Lyndal Stuart is a proud word nerd. “I was a bookworm as a kid, I still am, and always will be,” she says. “I thought that might not take me places because being literary seemed to devaluing by the day when I went to university and foolishly studied journalism rather than law – but now, I’m so glad I kept at it.

“I wanted to write for the rest of my life because I romantic notions of being like Enid Blyton and LM Montgomery when I was about 8. My Mum and my grandmother diplomatically pointed out that you don’t just become an author and earn money right away, so I might be better off considering journalism and I had a passion for social and political theory, so off to UTS I went. I genuinely believe that words have the capacity to change the world, and it’s why I wanted to pursue a career in communications.

“So my first position was as a production editor on a Dolls, Bears and Collectables, and then I moved on to scrapbooking. I know I wasn’t changing the world, but at the time scrapbooking was a $2.6 billion industry in the US. It wasn’t what I initially had in mind for my career, but what it taught me was invaluable.”

Lyndal was editor-in-chief by the age of 26 and under her direction, Scrapbooking Memories became Australia’s fastest growing magazine and stayed that way for three years straight. She was attending events internationally, managing a talented team and over 300 contributors and liaising hundreds of retailers across the country. She says the experience she gained in terms of building a community, public relations, stakeholder engagement, brand and content management was invaluable.

“Scrapbooking is about family, celebration and personal healing. Essentially, it was an earlier version of Instagram and Facebook, but with a lot of creativity and papercraft.”

What did become apparent to Lyndal was that this role was more a marketing role than an editorial one. So when Lyndal moved to the work UK in 2004 her career moved too – into PR and marketing in sustainable architecture. After this, Lyndal sought a job with an international architecture firm where she managed public relations for an organisation with over 1,000 staff. “It was a big operation and I gained great experience, but there was still this gaping hole – I really wanted to have a sense of social purpose in my work and I just couldn’t shake that”.

Her search for a career with purpose took her to Business in the Community then Common Purpose, then to motherhood with the birth of her daughter in 2011, and back to Australia to manage marketing and communications at the Centre for Social Impact. Lyndal led CSI’s rebrand and built its identity, content marketing, events and education marketing over five years and loved it.

It was here that it hit home just how important it is for government, companies and charities to work together to achieve community impact and address entrenched social challenges. “For companies, that means placing value and purpose at the heart of business, for charities I really see huge opportunity for them to lead the way in how to innovate in this space – they are directly connected with people, issues and causes – and government will always have a role and responsibility in building and sustaining our communities.”

It’s this focus on social impact, and dare I say it, practical outcomes, that strikes me the hardest throughout the conversation.

“I’m thrilled to join Good2Give’s team to be part of innovations to fund charities and new avenues to involve Australian companies in the process. It’s a practical and innovative solution that we offer companies, donors and charities, and an audacious but tangible goal that I’m looking forward to being a part of achieving,” she said.