CharityComms

With 190,000 charities in the UK competing to get their message across, you might expect the smaller voices to be drowned out. While a few big names devote departments to marketing, PR, branding or events, the vast majority are lucky if they have a single employee allocated to communications. Nevertheless, small charities can and do get heard.

“The internet has made a great difference,” says Liz Carnell, who founded leading anti-bullying charity Bullying UK (previously Bullying Online) with her son John in 1999. “We were probably the original internet charity, and we invest a huge amount of time and energy into our website.”

Their site is the first hit when you enter “bullying” into Google – not something that happens by accident. “We have our own content management system, so we update the site regularly and react to news, and we chose our keywords carefully,” says Liz.

On top of that, a staggering 31,000 sites link into the bullying.co.uk website – the result of countless hours spent emailing other connected charities, schools, local authorities, health authorities. “It’s mushroomed enormously,” says Liz.

From the spare room to Sky

Although the charity has recently moved out of Liz’s spare bedroom and now employs two full-time members of staff, Liz herself hasn’t given up the day job – as a journalist at the Yorkshire Post. She admits her knowledge of the media has proved useful: “I’ve seen a lot of press releases, so I know what goes straight in the bin.”

When they compiled their National Bullying Survey 2006, Bullying UK were approached by a number of PR agencies offering to conduct a campaign. ”We asked one, just out of interest, how much it would be,” says Liz, “and they told us £6,000. We couldn’t possibly justify spending that sort of money.”

Nor did they need to: Liz released the survey in the run up to National Bullying Week, when it was the lead story on Sky News, ITN and the BBC.

“Journalists are lazy people…”

There’s no great secret to getting media coverage if you have a story worth telling.

Ariel Spigelman of charities think-tank nfpSynergy says: “Cultivate relationships, face-to-face or over the telephone, with individual journalists, making sure you target the right publications and the right audience.”

When it comes to press releases, your chances will improve if you do the journalist’s work for them.

“Journalists tend to be lazy people,” says Ariel, “so make sure you have an article ready to go, complete with stats, high-res images and people for follow-up interviews. Journalists want to talk to someone at the top, so it’s important your chief executive is always available for comment.”

Celebrity status

Even more appealing than a chief executive is a celebrity angle – and there’s no reason why small charities should make do with the z-list.

“The most important thing is to tap into the need or interest of that particular celebrity,” says Siobhan Wakely Media Officer at NCVO, who run workshops on how charities can use celebrities in their campaigning.

“If there’s something in their own experience that relates to the charity’s work, they’re more likely to be interested in helping out. Of course, it’s a two-way thing: you have to look at what the celebrity will get out of it too.”

The celebrity approach has certainly paid off for The Family Haven, a small charity helping vulnerable families in Gloucestershire. Formed in 1988, they’ve seen a big rise in media and public interest in the last couple of years since local mum Kate Winslet agreed to become their patron.

“It’s certainly made a difference to our profile, and really made people take notice,’ says fundraiser Claire McGrath. ‘We’ve gained a lot of press coverage, and I think the names Kate Winslet and Family Haven are linked in people’s minds, particularly in the Gloucestershire area.”

Competing with the big names

Even the least glamorous things can grab attention: Borderline, who work with homeless Scots in London, caused quite a stir recently with their annual report, which won its category at this year’s Third Sector Excellence Awards. Striking design and photography, along with personal letters testifying to Borderline’s impact, turned a necessary but dull document into a powerful communications tool.

‘”e were rather bored with our annual report,” admits director Eileen Ward, “so we placed an advert on the Arts & Business website. We expected to get a student designer, but in fact a professional came along and agreed to do the work pro bono. Reports often don’t mean much to the layperson, but this one has really had an impact.”

“We are passionate about small being excellent,” adds Eileen, who sees no conflict with other homelessness charities, large or small. “The big names like Shelter and Crisis do excellent research and give homelessness a high profile, and we’ll ride on the back of that. We co-work with other agencies, so we’re all good friends. But we’ll also shout out loud about the particular benefits and expertise that we have, and hold our heads high.”

Bullying UK: www.bullying.co.uk
The Family Haven: www.thefamilyhaven.com
Borderline: www.borderline-uk.org

nfpSynergy: www.nfpsynergy.net
NCVO: www.ncvo-vol.org.uk