Welcome to 7 Sparks, LLC

7 Sparks, LLC is a full service communications, marketing and production consultancy run by Jennifer and Billy Sparks. We help our clients communicate effectively to their target audience using all available media. Whether they are seeking assistance with developing messaging or creating a full-scale integrated marketing/communications plan, mapping out political strategy, or putting together a winning team for their TV/Film, theater or music production, we ensure our clients achieve their goals on time and on budget.

Our perspective is that successful projects start by identifying and listening carefully to the target audience and then creating campaigns that resonate with the needs of the audience. Who is your target audience? What is the call to action? What does success look like? We believe in measurable outcomes. We look forward to working with you.

Past Clients have included: the USDA, Habitat for Humanity, the Pew Center for the States, Save the Children, and David Kim, congressional candidate.

We also collaborate with partners on our own creative projects. 7 Sparks, LLC was founded by CEO, Jennifer Sparks, who manages all 7 Sparks contracts and works closely with her husband, Billy Sparks, a Principal in the firm. Together Billy and Jennifer bring decades of high-level experience. We offer a powerful combination of strategic, impactful insights and passionate, innovative solutions that accomplish the target objectives on time and on budget.

Services

Communications and Marketing

Billy and Jennifer have more than three decades of communications management as communications and marketing directors. We offer our clients advice on the most effective way to reach the target audience within their budget. We advise clients on how to leverage all media platforms including traditional media and social media with a particular emphasis on the importance of video as a critical component of any integrated marketing and communications plan. 7 Sparks offers clients expertise in all aspects of communications and public affairs including by-lines, crisis management, media advisories, op-eds, paid media plans, press releases, press conferences, rapid response, social and digital media, special events, speech writing, thought leadership articles and white papers.

Fundraising

Both Billy and Jennifer have raised funds for creative projects and understand how to develop messaging and targeted marketing collateral to ensure that fundraising goals are met. Understanding your audience and talking to them in their language is a crucially important aspect of fundraising. Listening to the potential funder and understanding how and why they might be interested in funding a particular project is essential. Our philosophy is grounded in the belief that change makers enjoy giving to projects where they know the funds will be wisely stewarded and highly impactful in the area of need. Listening carefully to the wishes of the donor and responding with a succinct proposal is key to any fundraising campaign.

Music Production

Billy Sparks
Songwriter Singer Performer

Sparks began writing songs inspired by our times in the 1970s. Chosen by legendary artist Peter Yarrow as a new folk artist at the Kerrville folk festival, Sparks has performed live for millions of listeners. In 1980 Sparks recorded “Let Our People GO,” a prayer to free the Iranian hostages. Performing live at Solidarity Day in 1981 singing to over 500,000 people on the capital grounds, Sparks’ original songs “Make us All Teachers” and “Join Hands” were chosen for a live album with Pete Seeger and Joe Glazer. Recently Sparks sang for the hundreds gathered to voice concern for the separated children on our borders with his song, “Walls Come Down.” Sparks and his music have been a clarion call for equality, unity and hope for four decades.

Neil Young opened his Dallas concert in 1985 by playing Billy’s song, “Going, Going, Gone,” a ballad for the farmers locked in a deep depression. Sparks helped create the first Farm Aid concert and played for the thousands of farmers who marched on Washington in 1985.

Sparks played for the Crystal Apple awards at the famous Gracie Mansion in New York. He performed at the Freedom Festival in 1989. Sparks took to the stage to sing for the hundreds of thousands gathered for peace in D.C. in 1991. He has played Threadgill’s in Austin, Texas and the Lone Star Café in NYC.

As an accomplished songwriter, Sparks has been invited to write the songs to commemorate the historic meting of a Lakota elder and an Andean Elder for the first time in 600 years. And when the civil rights training center, the Highlander School in Tennessee where Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King began their journey, wanted a new song for their 50th anniversary leadership conference, they called Billy who wrote “Make Us All Teachers.”

Billy and Jennifer recently recorded “Prayer for America,” dedicated to our first responders in Nashville’s famous music row accompanied by some of Music City’s finest players and co-produced with country music artist Billy Dawson.

Sparks wrote and recorded “Rolling Thunder,” an anthem for the 500-year journey of Native Americans. The song was featured on Japanese nationwide TV and was sung live for a gathering of Elders at Wounded Knee. Former Sting lead guitarist Jeffrey Lee Campbell played on the cut.

Sparks performed in Times Square with Richie Havens on the 20th anniversary of Woodstock. His band the Bird Tribe played live for the 60 thousand gathered at the original site. Juma Sultan, who had played with Hendrix in 1969, was on Congas. Sparks performed his inspiring song, “Warriors of the Rainbow,” at sunset.

Sparks journey has brought us songs to lift our hearts and remind all of us of the power of music to heal, to bring love into our lives and unify us all as one people. A New York music publication once featured Sparks with the headline, “Igniting Evolution.”

Jennifer Sparks has performed in choral ensembles and theater productions for over 30 years. She was a member of the elite a cappella singing “Madigrals” at the National Cathedral School for girls. While in High School, she founded an all female a cappella singing group called “Sarsparilla 7”. She also sang with the University of Chicago Motet Choir. In addition to starring roles in Gilbert and Sullivan productions in Chicago, she delighted audiences in London with her portrayal of the Mother Superior in “Nunsense” in the London Fringe (London’s equivalent to Off Broadway). She also enjoys performing jazz/cabaret music.

Government Relations and Political Consulting

Billy and Jennifer Sparks offer candidates and advocacy groups assistance with communications and media relations. In addition we provide research based and data driven message development, speech writing, debate preparation and media training. Billy Sparks has worked on campaigns on the local, state, and national level. He served as the Director of Rapid Response for Mayor Dinkins mayoral campaign in New York City. He also served as the Deputy Chief of Staff for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former United Nations Ambassador, and former US Secretary of Energy. Billy Sparks also served as Deputy Director of President Bill Clinton’s 2^nd Inaugural Gala.

Jennifer Sparks grew up in Washington DC. She is the Granddaughter of the Honorable United States Senator, Joseph Ball. The United States Senate unanimously confirmed her mother, Sara Lister, to the post of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. Jennifer understands the importance of speaking truth to power and she has a keen sense of political timing. Her extensive theater and film direction background have proved very useful in the public arena. She understands how to grab the audience’s attention with compelling lines that touch the heart and then back up the argument with unassailable evidence that creates a lasting impression on the viewer/listener.

Theatre, TV & Film

Jennifer Sparks got her MFA from Northwestern University in Theatre Direction. In New Mexico, she founded and ran a professional theatre company called, “The Southwest Repertory Theatre.” She also served as the Associate Producer on several PBS TV documentary projects with Christopher Productions. Jennifer was a travel correspondent for the Albuquerque NBC affiliate on their program “Good Day New Mexico” where she hosted and produced a weekly travel and recreational segment called, “The Family Travel Minute.” She has written and directed several short films and videos for corporate and non-profit organizations.

Billy Sparks spearheaded the UNM Health Sciences TV commercials over a 10 year period. Earlier in his career Sparks, collaborated with Governor Richardson to develop New Mexico’s film policy objectives which included incentives and capital investment to make New Mexico a major center for TV & film production. Sparks was featured in a nationally broadcast "Billy the Kid” History Channel documentary.