Strategic Communications FAQ

Third Culture Comms is a boutique strategic communications firm founded by Yasmine Djellal, based in the Washington D.C. area. We work with institutions, organizations, and leaders who are building something meaningful and lasting, especially in the Global South, and who need communications that match the weight of their work.

We function as a senior strategic partner, not a traditional agency. Every engagement runs through Yasmine directly.

It comes from the concept of third culture kids: people who grew up moving between cultures and ended up belonging fully to none of them, but fluent in all of them. That is the lens TCC brings to communications.

Our founder's formation across cultures and languages, combined with nearly two decades building that fluency inside the world's most consequential development institutions, shapes how we think, how we write, and whose stories we know how to tell. It is not a brand story. It is how we actually work.

It starts with a real conversation about your work, your environment, and your challenges. We invest time in understanding your situation before recommending an approach, and we are direct about whether TCC is the right fit.

If we take on the engagement, you work with Yasmine throughout. There are no junior teams, no account managers, no handoffs. The senior judgment you engaged is the judgment you receive.

We take on a limited number of clients at any time because that is the only way to do this work at the level it deserves.

We work with a small number of clients at any given time, all doing consequential work.

Development-focused institutions navigating a shifting international landscape. Foundations, NGOs, and impact-driven organizations whose missions have outpaced their narrative. Governments and policy institutions in the Global South building credibility with new audiences. Senior executives and institutional leaders who need their voice to carry the authority their position demands. Businesses operating across borders in complex environments.

What our clients share: the work is real, the stakes are high, and they know the story matters.

Yes. This is central to why TCC exists. We believe the institutions building lasting change in the Global South are the rightful authors of their own stories. We bring inside institutional knowledge, four-language fluency in Arabic, English, French, and Spanish, and a genuine understanding of the environments, audiences, and stakes involved.

We work with institutions across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific, as well as with the development-focused organizations that serve those regions.

Our work falls into three engagements.

Strategic Counsel is our ongoing advisory relationship. We work as your embedded senior communications partner, present for the moments that matter.

Narrative Architecture is foundational work for organizations at a turning point: we build the core story, message architecture, and language system that everything else gets built on.

Principal Voice serves the individual leader: speechwriting, thought leadership, and the preparation that makes high-stakes communications feel authoritative and natural.

We are direct about which engagement is right for your moment. If none of them fit, we will tell you.

Washington D.C. area-based, yes. That location is deliberate. The region sits at the center of international development, global policy, and multilateral influence.

Our clients are across the United States, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, and beyond. We work wherever the work needs to happen.

We advise in Arabic, English, French, and Spanish as a genuine thinking and advising capability across four languages and the cultural registers that come with them.

For organizations communicating with Arabic-speaking audiences in the Gulf or MENA, French-speaking institutions across Africa, or Spanish-speaking partners in Latin America, this fluency is not incidental. It is foundational to how we work.

Reach out through our contact page or directly at desk@thirdculturecomms.com. We will set up a conversation.

We will ask about your work and what you need. You will hear from Yasmine directly, not from an intake coordinator. From there, we either find a fit or we help you think about what you actually need, even if that turns out not to be us.