Charity Content Conference: building better content

At a time when comms professionals are expected to do more with less and AI is making it difficult for charities to cut through the noise to reach audiences, could a content strategy help? In this talk, Trish explores why it is more important than ever to have a strategy in place and what this could look like in practice. Trish walks us through the essential components and offers advice for adapting to the rise of generative AI.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

If you’re working on charity content to drive change or provide a service, content design has a lot to offer. As an approach, it has been embraced and embedded by the government, healthcare and tech sectors, but hasn’t been widely adopted by the charity sector. In her talk, Ruth explains what content design is, what it has to offer, and why it can be used by anyone (not just design experts). She also outline its core principles and examples of good practice as well as some practical approaches, tools and training that anyone can use.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

Content design is the practice of creating and organising content to meet the needs of your users. But just how do you generate and use insight to inform content? Using examples from their work at Scope, Ilonka and Liz share how to plan your user research projects, including what methodologies are available for different budgets, and how to best use insights to make content that truly meets the needs of your users.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

Content planning and prioritisation are hard. Lots of us are working with limited resources, confusing processes, and seemingly endless requests for content. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone! This session is all about saying ‘no’. Pia explores tools and methods for pushing back, protecting our time, and focusing on content work that will best meet our users’ needs. 

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

Discover practical strategies to transform your charity into a video content organisation. This session delivers actionable steps to get your entire team engaged and enthusiastic about creating compelling video content. Learn how to build and maintain a valuable bank of evergreen video assets, ignite genuine passion for video creation across departments, and implement four proven technical tips that dramatically improve smartphone video quality.  Leave with a clear roadmap for making video creation an integral part of your charity’s culture.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

A content audit is an essential part of your content strategy toolkit. But how do you make sure you’re creating meaningful and actionable insights? This session covers what you need to know when planning and conducting successful audits. Taking a step-by-step approach you’ll learn when, how and why to audit and which measures deliver practical results. Plus, discover tips for getting the best out of stakeholders and interpreting and acting on your data to create better content

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

If you want your supporters to help meet your charity’s needs by donating, campaigning and giving their time, then you need to meet their needs too. Whether they need to learn, feel, share or connect – engagement actions can help. In this session, Claire explains what engagement actions are and how they’re critical to activating your supporter base, deepening their commitment to your work and maintaining an active list. So when the time comes that you need your supporters to act – they’re ready and excited to help. Learn what an engagement action is and how to create your own, and be inspired by examples from across the sector.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

User testing can be an effective way to ensure your content resonates with your target audiences. Using examples from GOV.UK work, Amy offers some practical methods for testing content to suit all charity budgets. She explains how testing can help content better meet the needs of your audiences and your organisation’s aims.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

Using learnings from her work at Meta, Dolly shares how personalised content pathways can deepen engagement, a principle that’s just as powerful for charities trying to deepen donor relationships or support beneficiaries. Dolly also delves into more strategic parts such as why moving fast matters, and when to use product-centred content design vs user-centred content design.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

With charity resources more limited than ever, our comms teams are often expected to be copywriters, strategists, videographers, email specialists and even designers! Luckily fantastic tools like Canva exist to help us become generalists where we don’t have an in-house design team or the budget for a freelance designer. This interactive session covers the basics of navigating Canva, utilising brand tools, keeping brand consistency, and foundations of good content design.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

Charities can sometimes post what they want to share, rather than considering what their audience want to hear. We can forget that we’re guests in people’s social media feeds, and we need to be likeable enough that people want us to overstay our welcome! Drawing on examples from outside and inside the sector, Corinne offers advice for how to plan audience-led social media content that people will want to engage with and how to test, learn and optimise to achieve even better results.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.

What does a strong content culture look like at a charity—and why does it matter? In this session, Yas dives into how to embed shared values into everyday content practices. She explores the people, processes, tools, and skills that help shape a thriving content culture, as well as different models you might adopt. Expect honest insights into common challenges and practical ways to overcome them. Don’t miss this final session—it’s the perfect way to wrap up the day.

This talk ends with a Q&A session, facilitated by our stage host.