Freelance Services

Dana is available for freelance nonprofit consulting services and spiritual direction. Below are details regarding her nonprofit services. Please click here to be redirected to her spiritual direction services.

Client Testimonials

“Organizational Solutions (OS, Inc) serves the nonprofit community throughout the Southeast with Fundraising, Marketing, Training, and Capacity Enrichment Solutions. OS, Inc. has been most impressed with J. Dana Trent’s services.  OS, Inc. contracted with Ms. Trent for foundation research and grant writing.  We were very pleased with Ms. Trent’s thoroughness, communication, and writing skills.  OS, Inc. looks forward to a continued relationship for grant writing and other creative services.”

–Bill Peck, MSW, Founder and President, OS, Inc.

“For any who are considering a communications consultant to help with projects involving copy writing and editing, production of progress reports and layout design, I would highly recommend you work with Dana Trent. I have had the privilege of working with Dana on several projects and have been so pleased with her professionalism, efficiency, and desire to provide high quality work to her clients. When I worked with Dana, I was most impressed with how she took time to understand my perspective about what I most wanted to be communicated to my audience.  I was always excited to work with Dana and totally impressed with the products she was part of creating.”

–George “Tripp” Ake, III, PhD, Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Services, Duke Univesrity and Assistant Director of Training for the Center for Child & Family Health (CCFH)

“Our organization approached Dana seeking to create a progress report to share information with funders, supporters, and other stakeholders. Dana confidently led us through considering and establishing the intended purpose, tone, and audience of our publication. She provided numerous critical edits to our text, helping us hone our message while honoring the individual writing style and personality of each contributor. Without pressuring, nagging, or micromanaging, Dana helped use formulate and abide by a reasonable but ambitious timeline for the project. This, combined with her knowledge of formatting, budgeting, and other production processes, allowed us to submit a nearly perfect first draft to our designers, drastically reducing the need for expensive and time-consuming edits to our finished product. From start to finish, working with Dana was a rewarding and enjoyable experience.”

–Katie Smith, LCSW, Clinical Social Worker, the Center for Child & Family Health (CCFH)

“I worked with Dana for a year and a half at the Center for Child and Family Health. The first words that come to mind when I think of Dana are integrity, dependability, perseverance, creativity, and calm. While serving as program director of a mental health-law enforcement partnership program at the Center, I asked Dana to assist us in developing an inaugural annual report for our program. Dana brought a sense of enthusiasm and commitment to our project that truly helped it to be a successful endeavor. At all steps along the way, from thematic decisions, to audience selection, to editing the product, Dana provided inspiration and guidance to us. Sometimes as clinicians, it is hard for us to “bridge the gap” between what we do and how we explain it to non-mental health audiences. Dana helped us keep the reader in mind and to think creatively about our messaging. We were greatly pleased with the outcome – and feel that her efforts helped us to highlight our program’s successes, to tell our story in a meaningful and clear way, and to reach the appropriate audience for our on-going needs.”

–Karen A. Carmody, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center

Nonprofit Communications and Development Services

J. Dana Trent is a professional writer and communications specialist. She holds an undergraduate degree from Salem College and a graduate degree from Duke University. She is the author of many articles, personal essays, and book reviews. Dana has worked with nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations, educational institutions, and hospitals, including holding positions at Duke University, the Center for Child & Family Health, and UNC Hospitals.

Her freelance project expertise includes:

• grant writing
• fundraising (annual fund, capital campaign management, event planning, and major gifts)
• writing workshops and writing instruction
• copy writing and editing
• newsletter and annual report production
• social media projects
• public relations and marketing campaigns
• press releases
• Web site content management

Please e-mail your project needs to dana@jdanatrent.com.

Spiritual Direction

The Rev. J. Dana Trent is an ordained a Baptist minister. She received a Master of Divinity degree from Duke University Divinity School and has served as a resident chaplain specializing in death and dying for the UNC Hospitals Department of Pastoral Care. After her residency year, Dana served on the Duke Divinity School staff, working with the Office of the Chaplain the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies. Most recently, she has been an advocate for Triangle children affected by abuse through her position as the Communications and Development Coordinator at the Center for Child & Family Health.

Dana’s parish ministry experiences include two terms as the Olin T. Binkley Baptist Church’s Interim Minister of Christian Education (2005-06 and summer of 2008), and work as the Racial Reconciliation Campus Ministry Intern for Union Baptist Church and Watts Street Baptist Church (2004-05). She is currently a member of Binkley Church’s diaconate where she has provided pastoral care to congregants since 2008.

Dana blogs on various spiritual topics and is the author of several articles, personal essays, and book reviews. She has taught a writer’s workshop for the North Carolina Jaycees Burn Center Annual Adult Burn Survivor annual retreat and led a support group for the annual Burn Survivor Reunion.

Dana specializes in care surrounding issues of grief and loss, life transitions, and interfaith topics.