CC: So what's your background?
I studied German at degree level and after that got into PR in the music industry. After three years though I thought it was somewhat vacuous and inward-looking, so I needed to find something that was a little bit more fulfilling. That’s when I headed into the charity sector, where I landed a role at VSO, after which this job at the British Skin Foundation popped up, and it had more responsibility, and more freedom to do what you want.
CC: How did you get this job, and did getting it fulfil a long-held ambition?
I’d gone for the role about two years prior and didn’t get it, but my two years experience at VSO had broadened my skills and experience. It gave me a stronger portfolio, and I think that really swayed it. The British Skin Foundation is a small charity – there’s only five or six of us. I wanted to sort out a couple of areas I hadn’t seen the charity appear in, and I think that helped sway things in my favour at the interview as well.
CC: How long have you worked at your current organisation for?
One year.
CC: What was your first charity job? And your first communications role?
My first charity job was Media Assistant at VSO, but I moved between teams – I was in the VSO comms team for about eight months, and then I jumped into another team, which was more of a marketing/fundraising role, and then I got back into comms again. It’s given me a much broader understanding of integrated communications, so coming into this role I have a good understanding of the need for marketing and of how an organisation fits from top to bottom.
CC: What do you actually do on a daily basis?
My job is to help people understand the messages behind our logo. I work with case studies, getting them into the press and also to help the public find out what our role is in terms of various skin diseases and the research that we fund.
The other aspect is a lot of internal comms – dealing with our supporters, putting together the quarterly newsletter and e-newsletter, managing parts of the website, and going through all of the final reports making sure they are understandable to the average newspaper reader.
CC: What's been your biggest achievement in this role so far?
Probably just getting a much larger stronghold in terms of our regional coverage. This year a large chunk of our coverage has been from regional press – mostly case studies, people taking part in our events, and we’ve seen that influence things in terms of the amount of people who are fundraising for us on a community level, and I think that’s something we’ll continue to push.
CC: What are the most challenging parts of your role?
We get a lot of reports about the research that we’ve funded, and probably the most challenging part is making sure that they’re a) understandable, and b) exciting. You’ve got to take a couple of steps back and think, how is this relevant to the news? There are certain skin diseases no one really hears about, but they also tend to be the most extreme. Getting case studies is also difficult. It’s about marrying the two – making people aware of skin diseases and their severity, without boring them.
CC: What do you enjoy most about your job?
The range of different things I get to do. Because the team’s quite small, I get to do a lot more hands-on stuff, so it basically means that if I have an idea about something, nine times out of ten it’s going to be me who puts it into practice. If you put something into practice and it works, you can really see the rewards.
CC: Anything you don't enjoy?
There are certain elements of the role that are tough. When you speak to case studies, their experiences will obviously vary a lot from ‘I’ve got a bit of eczema’ through to parents of small babies who spend eight months of a year living in the hospital ward because their child is constantly infected. It can be a bit downbeat at times, but obviously for all the right reasons.
CC: What kind of personality is best suited to working in a job like yours?
I think you’d probably have to be quite creative. Self-motivation’s another big one. You have to be quite a good listener too, which helps when you’re talking to real-life case studies – you have to be able to gain their trust, and to recount information from them in a non-confrontational way. Two or three months down the line, you might need them to help you again.
CC: Any top tips for people wanting to follow in your footsteps?
Build a diverse portfolio of articles. The big advantage of having a grounding at VSO was writing things from regional press releases through to things that would turn up in the nationals. You have to be able to cater your style, and tailor your writing skills to different things.
Published November 2009