CharityComms

CharityComms was founded by a combination of sector specialists and charities. An interim management team has been pulling it all together and a steering group of existing members has been giving the direction. For a list of members see our Members page.

Joe Saxton

Joe is chair and founder of CharityComms. He has worked with a team of people to take CharityComms from a gleam in a few people’s eyes in 2005 to delivering the website, seminars and range of other activities that CharityComms is now making happen.

In his day job Joe is driver of ideas and co-founder of a specialist research consultancy for not for profit organisations. Over 45 out of the top 50 charities are its clients. Joe has authored reports on volunteering, impact evaluation, mission & visions, branding and socio-economic change.

He is chair of the Institute of Fundraising as well as the student environment and development campaign group People & Planet.

In 2006 he was named by public affairs agency AS Biss one of ten 'Stars of tomorrow' in politics for the next ten years, and one of only two people from the charity sector. In 2005, 2006 and 2007 he was voted the most influential person on UK fundraising. In 2003 the Guardian named him as one of the 100 most influential people on social policy.

Norma Johnston

Norma Johnston is a communications professional with 20 years experience in commercial public relations, magazine journalism and charity communications at a global level. Norma has held senior posts in the charity sector as Communications Director for Amnesty International UK and UN agencies including the World Health Organization.

As global Communications Director for Plan, an international children’s development agency, she devised Plan’s first global advocacy campaign on Universal Birth Registration with a successful launch at the UN supported by Kofi Annan and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Five million children in the developing world have benefited since the start of the campaign.

An accomplished public speaker Norma has appeared many times on international and national tv and radio. Her consultancy work covers strategy building, branding and raising awareness of organisations in a measurable way in support of organisational goals.

Emma Wickenden

Emma joined CharityComms as Coordinator, in January 2008, to help develop, run and promote CharityComms services.

Before this she was Communications Assistant at the Voluntary Action Media Unit (VAMU), a project which aimed to improve the relationship between charities and the media. At VAMU Emma helped to organise, develop and promote activities such as: Snapshots - a networking event introducing charity workers to journalists; VolunteerGenie - a website designed to support charities interested in using the media to recruit volunteers, and askCHARITY.org.uk - an online charity contacts book for journalists.

Emma also contributed to the Clever Communications book published by VAMU, and ran a series of events for international charities to help them in their work with the media.

Previous to this Emma worked for a media monitoring agency in Scotland, where she held positions in media research and parliamentary monitoring. During this time Emma volunteered at the press offices of the Scottish Green Party and National Trust for Scotland. Emma currently volunteers for a small international charity called World In Need, where she provides advice and support on anything from media relations to recruitment.

Emma graduated from Edinburgh’s Napier University with a First-Class Honours degree in journalism and was the first in her school to have her undergraduate research published in an international, scholarly journal- Journalism Studies.

*Board members*

Judith Barnard

Judith Barnard is communications & campaigns director of Leonard Cheshire Disability and a member of the executive board. She is responsible for policy, campaigning, marketing, media and internal communications. Recent achievements include the renaming and rebranding of the charity and the launch of the award-winning Creature Discomforts campaign, which aims to change the way people see disability. See the first and second series at www.CreatureDiscomforts.org

Previously Judith was the director of policy & public affairs at the National Autistic Society and continues to champion this cause through her trusteeship of TreeHouse, the national charity for autism education. She is also a governor of a secondary special needs school, Garratt Park, in Wandsworth.

Prior to joining the voluntary sector Judith worked in local government communications in London, Cambridgeshire and Surrey.

In the little remaining spare time she has Judith enjoys reading novels, listening to opera (particularly Wagner) and unwinds by watching thrillers and soaps on TV. She also dotes on her gorgeous cat Big Mog - as well as her partner Jeremy!

Gideon Burrows

Gideon Burrows is founder and editor of ngo.media, a copywriting, editorial and design agency that works exclusively with charities and socially driven organisations. For over five years, ngo.media has been providing publications, websites, editing, proofing, media training and more to big name charities, as well as smaller community based organisations.

Gideon is also producer of the annual Charity Communications conference, publisher of the Good Writing for Charities bulletin and a contributor to the askCHARITY.org.uk blog and the charity media guide Clever Communications. ngo.media provided many of the features and interviews on the CharityComms website.

Visit: www.ngomedia.org.uk for a FREE download of 20 Top Tips for Better Writing for Charities

Carolan Davidge

Carolan Davidge is Director of Brand and PR at Cancer Research UK, the world’s leading charity dedicated to cancer research. She has led award-winning PR campaigns, including helping to make Britain smokefree in public places. In her current role she is responsible for the charity’s press and PR activities, brand management and advertising, corporate publications and celebrity and patient liaison.

Prior to Cancer Research UK, she held a variety of senior PR roles in the voluntary and public sectors including Chief Press Officer at the Medical Research Council, Head of PR at Macmillan Cancer Support and Head of Press at Shelter. Before PR, she worked in journalism and edited the Adviser magazine, now published by the Citizens Advice service. Her other professional interests include Board membership of the Science Media Centre.

The 2008 PR Week Power Book named her one of the most influential people in PR.

Rob Dyson

A graduate of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in 1999, Rob has spent over seven years in the third sector; the last five in public relations.

During his time as a public relations officer at disability charity Scope, he secured key spots on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and ghost-wrote comment pieces around the controversial US ‘Ashley X’ human rights debate.

He also managed the PR re-launch of 'Disability Now' magazine via a full page interview with the new editor in The Independent, and DN's first and only appearance in 'Heat'.

Through Scope, he has held lectures for undergraduate journalism students on depicting disability in the media, and in May 2007 founded the ‘Third Sector PR and Communications network’ on social networking site Facebook. The group allows public relations officers, journalists, fundraisers and other media agencies to network, has been mentioned in PR Week, and was a partner of Charity Communications conference 08.

Sue Fidler

Sue provides consultancy across the range of Internet issues, specialising in e-campaigning, e-communications and e-fundraising, strategic and functional web development.

She has more than 15 years of IT, Database and Internet experience from the charity and corporate sectors including seven years as IT, Database and Internet Manager at WaterAid and 3 years at Director of Solutions at CTT. Recent projects have included The World Cant Wait, ICount, and AnimalsMatter.

Combining practical understanding of fundraising, communications and wider charity issues, with 'big picture' business and IT knowledge, Sue is working to improve charities' use and understanding of the opportunities that technology offers the sector.

Penelope Gibbs

Penelope Gibbs is Director of a Prison Reform Trust campaign to reduce the number of children and young people in custody. This five year project is funded by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

Before joining the Prison Reform Trust, Penelope was Director of the Voluntary Action Media Unit, a lottery funded project which aimed to improve the relationship between charities and the media.

Since VAMU started in January 2005, the team produced research on the relationship between the two sectors; set up www.askcharity.org.uk a research resource for journalists; encouraged charity personnel to experience media life though Media Connections 2006 and attempted to engage the interest of media students in charities.

Penelope started her career in advertising as a "suit", shuttling between clients and creatives. She joined BBC Radio in 1990 to produce programmes including Woman's Hour, the Learning Curve and Excess Baggage. More recently in the BBC she worked for the Central Strategy Unit researching how the Corporation meets the needs of its Disabled Audiences.

John Grounds

John Grounds is director of communications for the NSPCC. His responsibilities cover all aspects of the society's PR, advertising, new media, marketing communications and internal communications.

John's career has included both commercial and charity roles. Prior to the NSPCC he was director of campaigns and communications at medical charity Action Medical Research. His last task at Action Research was to launch the charity's 50th anniversary year, with the help of its long-time mascot, Paddington Bear.

Past roles include responsibility for Communications at Barnardo's, five years at The Body Shop as international PR manager and a PR and campaigning role alongside Bruce Kent at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

John is also the author of a book, London: A Living Guide
Born in Braintree, Essex, John went to university in Cambridge and Reading before moving to London, where he lived until moving to his current home in Horsham, West Sussex, after the birth of his son, Tom in 1990.

Outside work, music is a consuming passion, as well as a love of film, art and literature and a 41-year devotion to Arsenal FC.

Betty McBride

Betty McBride, the BHF’s Director of Policy and Communications, joined the charity in 2000. She was previously Head of Press and PR at development aid charity Voluntary Service Overseas and then Help the Aged. Before moving to the voluntary sector she was a newspaper journalist and documentary maker at BBC TV.

She leads the Press, Communications, Policy and Public Affairs teams at the BHF, promoting the work of the charity and campaigning for heart health improvements. Her team is responsible for the BHF website and its brand.

Betty chairs the 33 – strong Cardio - Vascular Coalition of charities and sits on the Council of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC). She chairs the Animals in Research Group of the AMRC.