“I am passionate about social advocacy because nothing is more fulfilling to me as working with organizations that share my values, concerns, and professional desire to make a positive difference in the world.”
—Gisele McAuliffe, President, ACII

GISELE McAULIFFE
President
A seasoned external and internal communications professional with more than 27 years of experience at all levels both in the United States and overseas, Gisele specializes in cause-related public relations for nonprofit environmental, human rights, and governmental organizations.

In collaboration with Advocacy Communications International, Inc.'s (ACII's) select team of senior-level associate specialists, Gisele applies her strong humanitarian background and extensive frontline advocacy expertise to a complete range of skills and insights unique among communications consultants.

Growing up in Dublin, Ireland from ages 11 to 17 provided Gisele with her first exposure to the larger global picture — one that continues to shape her perspective on advocacy communications.

Gisele earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in Communications from New York University. She launched her communications career in broadcast news in 1980 at CBS Network TV News in New York City and later at CNN New York and London bureaus. Subsequently, she worked as an international freelance reporter based in London and Nairobi for American and European network radio news media. These included United Press International Radio, Voice of Germany, and Radio France International.

After reporting on wars, poverty, and human rights in South East Africa in the mid-1980s, Gisele became committed to shifting her role from that of storyteller to an advocate for positive change.

Her frontline advocacy experience includes serving as director of communications at The Wilderness Society, where she led the development of results-oriented communications programs directed to Society members, the news media, lawmakers, and the general public.

  • In addition, Gisele helmed strategic communications for the Society’s two top priority programs: the permanent protection from development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and an initiative to counter anti-environmental policies put forward by the Bush administration.
  • She left the Society to launch Advocacy Communications International, Inc., in 2001.

Prior to joining The Wilderness Society, Gisele oversaw international communications for the World Wildlife Fund’s international climate change campaign. Her key achievement was helping coalesce government and public support in some two-dozen nations around the globe in an effort to ratify an international treaty on climate change.

  • As part of that effort, Gisele coordinated a multi-lingual global publicity plan at the United Nations Climate Change negotiations in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997. Her efforts resulted in the generation of more news stories than the World Wildlife Fund had ever previously received from an international event.

Gisele’s nonprofit advocacy communications work began in 1989 while volunteering as an international delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (ICRC). In that capacity, Gisele served as a volunteer on two missions in war zones of Croatia and Serbia in the early 1990s. She helped provide relief to victims of the conflict and raised funds for the ICRC by coordinating news media outreach that generated stories by U.S. news outlets.

  • In 1992, she joined the American Red Cross National Headquarters Communications Department, overseeing communications for the organization’s Disaster Services and its $1 billion nationwide Biomedical (blood) Services.
  • In her role overseeing Red Cross Disaster Services, Gisele responded daily to a high volume of news media requests for interviews and information. She established, trained, and supervised a 24-hour “Rapid Response Team” of Disaster Services communications experts to rush to the scene of major incidents (sometimes occurring simultaneously) across the nation. These included the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake; and the 1993 Midwest floods.
  • At Red Cross Biomedical Services, she oversaw communications activities that addressed the organization’s relations with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Congress; product safety challenges; and implementation of the final phase of a $162 million transformation of the biomedical services program.