How to find great content ideas

Staff, volunteers, and trustees are all journalists whether they know it or not. They should always be on the hunt for great stories for their content strategy, to  raise money, and to campaign effectively. 

This may be an authentic, heart-warming story about the great work a volunteer is doing, or how the charity is helping a specific client to succeed. Each member of staff has their own story too.  

There can also be great story ideas from simply keeping tabs on latest trends and current affairs. How do these apply to each charity?  

Excellent stories can also come from within the charity sector. Look to see how others are generating great content and see if this can be replicated. Outside the charity sector is another useful source of content, to gather ideas from organisations and influencers from other professions.  

There is no shortage of great content for charities to use. But where do they find them?  

Trend surfing 

Charity workers can start the day as journalists do, by searching for the key trends of the day on Google, Twitter, and other well used media. How do these trends fit into a charity’s work?  

For example at the time of writing on March 12 2023 the top trends on Twitter in the UK, was ‘MOTD’, ‘Lineker’, ‘Match of the Day’ and the ‘BBC’.  These related the hot topic of that week, of the BBC suspending Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker over comments he made on social media criticising the language used by the UK government in relation to refugees. This presents human rights and asylum seeker charities with the chance to present great content to promote their cause. 

Key places to search include the trending tab on Twitter. Another is Google Trends, which gives charities the chance to search notable questions being asked. This is vital for using search engine optimisation  (SEO) to ensure your content is picked up by the search engine and featured prominently.  

Charity sector content 

The charity sector is already full of great examples of good causes creating engaging content. Charities should look to each other more and see what successful use of content looks like, in fundraising and campaigning, and how it can be applied to their organisation.  

A staple of this media is interesting appointment stories. Charities should look to see if their new recruits, from chief executive to frontline staff have a good story to tell that charity sector journalists can use. 

For example, a former volunteer appointed as chief executive or a board member with a charity is a great story. This highlights how charities nurture talent and offers a more authentic profile of an organisation’s new leader.  

Charity Digital has highlighted some of these volunteers to leaders, including Scouts Scotland CEO Graeme Luke, who took up the role 20 years after first being involved with the charity as a teenage volunteer.  

Charities excel in producing engaging research and data. Look to see how charities are presenting these, especially when picked up by the mainstream media.  

An example of a charity excelling in using data for great content is Coram Family and Childcare, which each year presents detailed research into childcare costs and availability in childcare places. Its 2022 survey gathered significant coverage due to highlighting a shortage of places and an increase in fees being charged. This coverage was engaging and had a variety of audiences UK-wide, which ensured it was picked up by the local, national and specialist media.  

Content from within 

As well as highlighting interesting new appointment stories, charities should be digging even deeper into their organisations, to see what great content can be gleaned from their volunteers and service users. This puts storytelling at the heart of content, to offer an engaging story for readers and viewers as well as help promote the charity.  

This can also be cost effective by encouraging staff and service users to create their own content. This user-generated content can include video diaries, often filmed over a phone for weeks, months or even years. Among recent examples of this was BBC Children in Need’s serialisation of the life of a young boy called Barney, who lives with Tourette’s Syndrome and how the charity the funder backs, Tourette’s Action, is supporting him. This highly engaging content gave authenticity and a real story to the work of the charity sector.

Content from outside 

Charities can also look outside their sector to see who is excelling at generating content, how they can be involved, or how they can mirror this success.  

An example in 2022 has been around the cost-of-living crisis and ensuring disadvantaged families are supported with their fuel bills. Among the most successful is producing content around this, including data and expert opinion, has been through advice website MoneySavingExpert.com and its Founder Martin Lewis.  

A raft of charities, including the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), Citizen’s Advice and StepChange, ensured they were able to generate great content by aligning themselves with Lewis, as his messaging mirrored their own. 

An example was in 2022 when Lewis and dozens of charities wrote to Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt around further hikes in energy bills planned for April. They were able to use this letter to generate their own social media content (see below). This also proved successful, as Hunt in his 2023 spring budget put back any hike in bills for a further three months.