Zoe Amar

Zoe Amar explores insights into the uses of artificial intelligence from the findings of the 2024 Charity Digital Skills Report and wider experiences across the sector.

Currently work is being done to build a picture of the tech issues which are top of mind for charities as part of this year’s Charity Digital Skills Report. Here are some initial tips for how to keep up with the big tech disruption...

We’ve been tracking how the sector has been changing before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in the latest Charity Digital Skills Report. These are the top 5 things to take away from the report this year...

Ahead of the 2020 Charity Digital Skills Report here are the key findings on how COVID-19 is beginning to change the sector...

Trolling affects charities of all sizes. We heard from CEOs of both large and small charities in through our research...

We’re thrilled to share with you the latest Charity Digital Skills Report which we launched yesterday with our partner Skills Platform...

Find out all about the Charity Digital Code of Practice - a framework to help charities understand where they are at with digital, what they are doing well and what they could develop...

Have you ever asked your CEO for investment in a digital project and been denied? Perhaps you’ve got a burning urge to help them learn about digital, but they’re so busy it’s hard to get their attention? Maybe you sense they’re interested to do more with digital, but nervous about how to tackle it? Are […]

Our second Charity Digital Skills Report, which we launched recently with Skills Platform, maps digital skills across the sector. In doing so, it reveals the hopes and fears charities have for their future. Over the last year, there have been some positive developments in the way charities drive digital change. More charities (15%) have been […]

Social media is a really powerful tool for charities and over the years I’ve seen them create, gather and grow ground breaking campaigns.  However, successful charity campaigns are not a product of luck. Lots of them can be attributed to fantastic planning, excellent implementation, borrowed ideas from elsewhere or a combination of all of these.  There is […]

A wise man once told me digital communications is like a spotlight being shone into every corner of your organisation. What you offer your stakeholders, how you stand out among all the noise online, your tone of voice and identity will receive attention as never before. Because digital enables organisations to scale up and reach more people, […]

It’s that time of year when you’re either on the beach, in the garden or at the very least enjoying a quieter commute. Hopefully you have a bit of space to ponder and catch up with a great book. Here are the top five books which have changed the way I think about charity communications. […]

A great marketing strategy will help your charity reach more people and generate more income. Without one, you could end up wasting a lot of money and time. So here’s everything you need to know. Strategy is hard. It’s not rocket science; but it’s hard because you have to make choices about what you want […]

CharityComms’ brand development conference on 24 October seems to have come along at just the right time. Despite cutbacks, many charities realise it has never been more critical to develop their brands to support the delivery of their goals. However, I’ve spoken to many smaller charities who feel that a good brand is only possible […]

A recent salary survey revealed that charity communications staff would like more support for their professional development. As budgets have tightened and workloads increased, it’s no surprise that professional development has slipped down the priority lists. The only person who can take charge of developing your skills is you. I realised this a few years […]

Every week charities launch new research findings. It’s a subject close to my heart as at Lasa we recently launched our report Digital: what every charity leader should know. We were delighted with the results. As I write, it’s had almost 9,000 views on Slideshare and received good coverage in the national and trade press […]

The stats about mobile use speak for themselves. When Elizabeth Kessick, Head of Insight at JustGiving, spoke at Lasa’s recent mobile technology summit, she revealed that there are 1.8 mobiles for every person in the UK, and that 52% of people in the UK now have smartphones. Right now, everyone I know in the sector […]

You’ll probably have seen CharityComms’ Communications Benchmark 2012 survey by now, which revealed that almost half (47%) of charity communications professionals do not feel that they have an organisational culture in which comms is respected. I think that having a rock solid, well thought out communications strategy is fundamental to comms proving its worth to […]

Will 2012 be a bumpy ride or a car crash for the sector? Funding cuts, restructures and an almost inevitable re-entry into recession create an environment euphemistically known as "challenging". A well known marketing director recently told me that his work these days involved constant fire fighting, to the point where he felt he was […]

Keep your marketing plan brief, says Zoe Amar. Here she explains what it should cover? A good marketing plan is about more than when, where and how you’re going to implement your marketing strategy, although of course that’s important too. It’s also a way to communicate effectively what you’re going to do. That last point […]

Zoe Amar, a marketing and business development manager at Lasa, shares lessons learnt from her charity's rebrand  By the time you read this, my charity (www.lasa.org.uk) will have launched its refreshed brand. We’ve worked our socks off to develop it (aided by the fabulous Beautiful World) so I’m really excited about finally getting it out […]

Lasa's Zoe Amar asks if you can afford not to rebrand Rebranding is expensive, takes years, and will make you unpopular with your stakeholders, right? Wrong. A rebrand doesn’t have to be any of the above. Done right, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. In fact, it could be one of the best investments […]

Lasa’s Zoe Amar offers three top tips on how to get support for your ideas It’s the moment we all dread. You’ve had a new, killer idea for your communications. You’re as keen as mustard to crack on with the campaign. All you need is the internal buy-in – and the budget – for it. Then your […]

We’ve just celebrated our 25th anniversary with a campaign that generated a return of investment (ROI) of 94:1; this means that for every £1 we spent on the campaign we earned £94. I’m going to talk about how we did it and the lessons I learnt along the way. You can also use many of […]