CharityComms

Charity communications offices should work across their organisation to exploit every opportunity to find, recruit and retain great real life stories, for use in their media work.
That was the message of Mary Ryan, patient liaison manager at Cancer Research UK, in a presentation to the third free CharityComms seminar, in November.

She outlined how CRUK use everything from fundraising events and charity shops, to asking around the office and posting on blogs to find people willing to talk to the media about how cancer has affected their lives.

The organisation has had t-shirts printed with “Share your story with me”, which fundraisers and staff wear at public events. Customer service representatives staffing CRUK’s phone lines are trained to identify case study possibilities, and to pass them on.
Ryan talked about the need of ‘organisational coherence’, bringing every part of the organisation into the case study recruitment process, through selling its benefits to staff and volunteers.

“Working with case studies is something that organisations are increasingly doing, and the press want increasingly them,” said Ryan.

The seminar also heard from Chris Stalker, head of the Campaigning Effectiveness programme at NCVO. He outlined research into ten indicators of an effective charity campaign. The research was published in November, in the publication “Tips on good practice in campaigning”, available from the programme’s website.

The seminar concluded with a fresh take on the history of charity campaigning, as CharityComms chair Joe Saxton outlined what charity communications had to learn from the campaign to abolish the slave trade.

He showed how early abolitionists used similar tactics to those charities use today to win their campaign, including legal challenges, boycotts, pamphlets, case studies and personal relationships with those in power.

The slave trade took over 100 years to win, yet some charities fail to plan their campaigns even five years into the future, Saxton concluded.

Download Chirs Stalker's presentation here (214.5 KB)

Download Joe Saxton's presentation here (302 KB)

We will upload Mary Ryan's presentation when available.