CharityComms

These are exciting times to be in charity communications, as the sector grows and becomes more professional. Gideon Burrows reports.

"Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee," wrote Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the American writer and first woman ever licensed as a glider pilot. "And just as hard to sleep after."

For thousands of charity sector staff and volunteers, good communication is why they get up in the morning – perhaps assisted by a good, strong coffee. From press officers to web editors, designers to celebrity managers, there's a busy network of professional and volunteer communicators working away daily to help charities do what they do.

Every charity communicates. From the volunteer chairwoman of a local children's fund writing a leaflet on her home PC, to a major aid agency implementing a long-planned emergency media, fundraising and communications strategy after an earthquake, it is words, pictures, writing and design that gets the job done.

Despite its obvious centrality to the voluntary sector, which now enjoys a combined income of over £27.7 billion a year, the charity communications function is poorly defined and barely measured.

In its bi-annual Almanac survey of the sector, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations is unable to list the number of people working in communications roles. Instead, communications staff are lumped invisibly under obscure staffing categories such as "Community and social" and "Service activities".

A few things are clear, though.

Of the 2.2 percent of the UK workforce employed in charities, and given that the average size of charities is quite small, a vast proportion or charity workers have some communications function as part of what they do day-to-day.

Over two in three people employed in the charity sector are women; charities recognise their communications teams as staffed by far more women than men.

And the charity sector is growing. With the workforce increasing some 15% since 2000, the number of people carrying out communications roles is bound to have rocketed too.

"There's a lot of public and media attention being directed towards the sector at the moment; it's being seen in a new way," says Jenny Clarke, Research Officer at the NCVO-led Workforce Hub. "So the way that PR and communications work has had to grow to match that increased interest.

"Charities now know they need the right people to ensure their organisation is seen in the media, and elsewhere, in a more positive light."

What research there is on the charity communications workforce backs up the idea that the sector plays an important role in what charities do.

A 2004 benchmarking study by charities think tank nfpSynergy revealed that charity communications departments had just over 18 full- time staff, on average. But one third of charities had fewer than 10 charity communications staff working across publications, marketing, press, internet or branding.

Nearly nine out of ten organisations had up to 10 volunteer communications workers, revealing the vast army of unpaid communications workers that help to keep the sectors' profile high.

Across communications functions, the majority of staff were employed in media and press.

Communications is a group of job functions in the charity sector that appears to have come of age. And it is one that is becoming increasingly professionalised.

The charity trade magazine Third Sector runs a weekly page of communications news, a series of new conferences for charity communications professionals has sprung up, askCHARITY.org.uk – the web-networking site that brings charities and media together – grows daily, and this year saw the launch of the first ever trade body for everyone who works in the sector: CharityComms.

Elaine Smethurst, Executive Director of Working for a Charity, which promotes careers in the sector, says more and more people are seeking communications- based careers within charities. The organisation's training courses now have whole modules on media and communications, reflecting the growing interest.

"People are more aware that charities have this function, and they're inspired by being able to go into it as a career," says Smethurst. "They realise they can use their skills to make the world a better place, or to right a wrong."

That's the key thing about charity sector communications.

Whether a copywriter or illustrator; whether someone who buys print or who finds great photographs, or whether a manager charged with the task of overseeing the lot, communicating in the voluntary sector is a job that comes with heart warming rewards.

For charity communicators, impact is not more sales of a new shower gel, or the ability to shield a faceless financial suit from questions about their salary. Impact is measured in rainforests saved, lives changed, children protected, animals rescued and communities transformed.

For charity communicators, that really is stimulating.