Free digital communications support for charities

Support needed

Among the most recent to post on the platform is Together for Mental Wellbeing, which is looking for a communications professional to give up time to help develop its COVID-19 communications strategy and update its crisis communications policy.

Another is Yorkshire Cat Rescue, which is already active on social media. It is looking for help to create and edit short videos for Facebook.

“This position could either be a one off opportunity to assist us with creating a compelling video for our advert or could be someone that is able to give us ongoing support with our social media content,” says Yorkshire Cat Rescue.

Meanwhile, Rites for Girls is looking for a “social media whizz” to help improve its digital connections with families. It’s call for support states: “We need someone who’s able to hang out in Facebook land, on Insta and happy to tweet away on our behalf. Our voice is a very particular one, empowering girls and strengthening and supporting parents.”

Also looking for help is Salusbury World, which supports refugee and migrant families and children in London. They need support to update content for its Word Press website. This opportunity could also involve offering sustainable help to train staff members in regularly updating the website with content, photos and videos.

The volunteer platform has already proved popular with communications experts looking to support charities for free. There was an 80 per cent increase in experts signing up during April.

Resource Hub

The Media Trust’s resource hub offers additional help for charities with their marketing and communications, such as webinars, practical guides and strategy templates.

Included in the resource hub is the Media Trust’s Digital Marketing Strategy Webinar series. This involves three modules to help charities to promote their work online, grow and engage audiences, as well as increase their visibility. This covers the basics of digital marketing strategy, tactics, using content and digital marketing channels, looking at social media, emails, blogs and web content. Each module is accessible via downloadable links and is pre-recorded.

Survey results

The volunteer platform and resource hub have been set up as the Media Trust and Charity Comms release details of a survey of charity representatives on how they are communicating.

Almost all (97 per cent) of the 219 charities surveyed said they would like to access pro-bono or volunteer communications support.

This found that email is the most favoured communications channel they are using. Websites is another highly popular area of communication among charities. The survey also revealed Facebook and Twitter are their most commonly used social media communication channels.

But there are gaps in knowledge where media and communication expert support is urgently needed.

Around two thirds of charities need help in setting up and using Facebook Groups to engage with supporters. Also, currently there is limited use of channels such as What’s App and Snapchat by charities.

Video content support is another area where support from experts is welcome. Only around a quarter of charities are using this platform, according to Media Trust and Charity Comms research.

“COVID-19 has meant a forced acceleration of the digitisation path they were already on,” says Media Trust Chief Executive Office Su-Mei Thompson on the communication challenges charities are facing.

She adds that charities “told us they need support with digital fundraising and creating digital content, with one charity saying, ‘we need help creating relevant content for digital channels to free up our helpline for urgent enquiries’.

“Another charity said they are worried about the glut of online content saying, ‘we need help identifying what is going to cut through’.”

The Media Trust’s volunteer platform looks to be an ideal way for charities to access urgently needed expertise to ramp up their digital communications.