To find out more about the products and services of Behind the Lines Copywriting, feel free to call our office at: (888) 228-8923 in the U.S. or 011-33-0494-22-3033 in the E.U.
Address: 29, rue Victor Clappier
83000 TOULON France
Biography of Cheryl Antier
Cheryl Antier is the founder and CEO of Behind the Lines Copy, a full-service boutique copywriting agency for Website designers, consultants and CEOs.
Before giving up the ‘corporate cubicle’ to live out my dream life as a writer on the French Riviera, I began working as a VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) Volunteer, and Volunteer leader, and served three terms of service. (If you’re not familiar with the VISTA program, it’s like the domestic branch of the Peace Corps.) Almost 6,000 people every year serve a year in an economically impoverished community in America, and work on a variety of poverty issues – homelessness, affordable housing, medical care, social justice, volunteerism and more.
I ‘cut my teeth’ as a community activist working with a small women’s social justice organization no one had ever heard of, and got a master’s degree through on-hands, in the trenches learning and experiences…
In my first project, we rallied low-income women around the issues that they were already the experts in, because they lived it every day… Domestic Violence, Affordable Housing, Welfare Reform, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Day Care Waiting Lists, Rental Application fees – these issues became more than just words. I learned how to organize a community, rally them together and give them the tools and resources they needed to become spokespeople on the issues for the media…
They spoke up during legislative committee meetings, and held protests, and got unfair laws changed… We started a street-law clinic, so that low-income women and their children could get help with landlord/tenant disputes, protective orders and more… Together we started a clothing closet for low-income women who were going back into the workforce, and that led to also getting donations for children’s clothing as well… And a family learning center, with job search related activities, including workshops, a computer lab, and on-site childcare facility for parents who were looking for work. We created not one, but two national movements, to help get Congress to pass the CHIP program. And we held one national workshop where advocates and low-income people from across the country came to share ideas, learn from each other and create a stronger, more connected community.
Along the way, I discovered I had a passion and a gift for fundraising – and so I found the time to get a certificate in Non-Profit Management Fundraising, while working and being a single mother, raising two sons.
And when my time with the VISTA program was at an end, I opened my own consulting firm, so I could work with small nonprofit organizations that couldn’t afford the services of a full time development director.
My clients were as varied as the issues they worked on:
- support services for homeless men
- providing temporary shelter for homeless families, so they could stay together and have access to the services they needed to get back on their feet
- working with low-income women again on poverty and economic self-sufficiency
- an adoption agency for homeless animals to save them from euthanasia
- helping to fund and set up an living aquarium
- helping build schools and wells for communities in Africa
- setting up a nonprofit organization for musicians
- raising funds for a special school for low-income children,
- and so much more!
I loved the work, my clients and the issues they fought for… And I learned how to tell stories that captured the imagination and touched the hearts of the people who supported them…
And then one day, after a personal tragedy made me realize how short and precious life is, and how quickly it passes, I decided to reinvent myself and my life, and do something that had been a dream since I was 14 years old… to live in France.
And now, here I am, living in the south of France, in the area known as the “French Riviera” and instead of just serving a purpose, I am purposing serving… I’m purposely serving my clients, and helping them learn how to transform their businesses and become the purposeful, heart centered, authentic experts that they already are, but haven’t known how to express…