CharityComms is the go-to membership organisation for those working in communications in the charity sector. Our expanding network shares their expertise and experience, through our wide range of events, on-demand and digital content, reports, our mentoring scheme and more.
Our aim is to connect, inform, empower, and inspire, working with our members and the wider communications community to enable them to deliver their world-changing missions more effectively.
Our members come from charities of all sizes and across all sectors, as well as those working as freelancers and agencies who offer products and services to support the third sector. Across everything that we do our focus is always to listen and respond to our members to deliver the support and resources that they most need.
Our vision
We enable every charity to value and use effective communications for a better world.
Our purpose
We champion the value of communications and continually improve the quality of communications by connecting and inspiring our community.
Our values
- Championing – we’re ambitious leaders. We champion the value and impact of charity communications and your professional role in the sector.
- Inspirational – we’re enthusiastic forward-thinkers. We seek out new ideas and best practice and share widely with our members.
- Welcoming – we’re a warm and helpful bunch. We’re on your side.
- Community – this is a place where you belong. We create a supportive, inclusive community and special interest groups within it.
Our strategic plan for 2024-2027
Our plan for the next three years is focused on building on our achievements to provide an even better level of service to our members, and to develop new ways to engage and support those working in charity communications. Our focus includes:
- Structured Learning – creating clear, structured learning pathways to develop content and resources for busy professionals.
- Unlocking the Power of Framing – building on the success of our “Communication That Works” series to build partnerships and support charity communicators to drive change.
- Voice of Charity Communicators – acting as a reliable leadership voice and convening conversations relevant to our members.
Where we started…
CharityComms was set up in 2007 by communications directors from some of the UK’s biggest charities, several of whom are still on our board of trustees. The founding members felt there was no real home for charity communications professionals where they could share best practice, insight and innovation and network with their peers. CharityComms was created to fill that gap.
…and where we are now
We are now a growing community of more than 12,000 people at more than 750 charities.
We look at communications in its broadest sense, covering the whole comms remit. In addition, we’re spreading the message of the value of effective communications to key influencers within and beyond charities, including colleagues in fundraising and services, senior leadership (CEOs and trustees), the media, politicians and policy makers and any other external bodies which impact on communications activities.
What we offer
- Membership for charities, individuals and corporate partners.
- Events including conferences, seminars, special interest networking groups and our Inspiring Communicator Awards.
- Mentoring, matching members with other comms professionals.
- Articles, templates, and benchmarking reports, including our Comms Benchmark and Salary and Organisational Culture reports.
- Topic hubs and best practice guides, bringing together useful information and resources about specific subjects including AI, the election, social issues, wellbeing and inclusive comms.
- AskCharity, a free service connecting journalists with charities.
- Charity Digital Benchmark, an online dashboard helping you measure key digital metrics.
- Free job advertising for our organisational and corporate members on our jobs board, featuring a wide range of comms roles from across the sector.
- Supplier directory of our corporate partners.
- Freelance directory of freelance individual members.
Award winning
In 2021, we won Team of the Year at the Memcom awards and were Finalists for Best Member Support during Covid19 at the Association of Association Executives Awards. In 2024 we were shortlisted as Medium Charity of the Year in the Third Sector Awards and as Best Professional Body or Learned Society in the Memcom Excellence Awards.
The Charity Digital Benchmark was also a winner in the 2020 The Drum Digital Advertising Awards for Most Effective Use of Data.
Certification
We are proud to say that we are ICO certified. This means that the Information Commissioners Office are satisfied that our processing of personal data complies with GDPR requirements and that we have appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to ensure data security. You can read more about what certification means on the ICO website.