Positive news: comms and social media

The power of collaboration

Charities Against Hate, a collective of more than 40 UK charities, is showing how collaboration is crucial when challenging online hate.

In September 2020, a survey carried out by the collective showed that 81% of the charity beneficiaries who responded had experienced hate online themselves or witnessed others being targeted.

To help combat this, it’s working together to develop long-term recommendations to prevent hate speech on social media. It’s also created a free best practice guide to help other charities with ethical digital marketing and communications.

Another powerful collaboration was the 20 for 20 campaign. Twenty charities representing people affected by rare and less common cancers launched a fundraising campaign in autumn 2020. It challenged participants to fundraise for 20 days, giving the option to support one of the charities or all twenty.

Key to the campaign was clarity in why the campaign, and the collaboration, was necessary at that point in time, with the messaging: “Cancer doesn’t stop for COVID”.

It also headlined the fact that during the pandemic fewer people were coming forward when having symptoms, leading to cases going undiagnosed, and that some had faced delays in treatment. The campaign has raised almost £100,000.

Showcasing social media talent in the sector

CharityComms’ Inspiring Communicators awards have proved that there’s an abundance of creativity, passion, and talent in the sector.

Award winners included Alissa Johnson, senior digital officer at Mayhew, the animal welfare charity. Her work there has contributed to the charity’s increase of Instagram followers (from 6,000 to 29,5000) and one of her online campaigns during the pandemic raised £10,000 for care packages for animal owners in need.

Another winner was Scott Roberts, media and communications manager for Barnardo’s. He used his creativity to drive the launch of a new online station, Barnardo’s Radio, during lockdown and arranged for a young carer to meet Billie Eilish.

Making an impact with social media and collaboration

Women’s Aid used both collaboration and social media to raise awareness of domestic abuse and secure funding for its cause. Through its network of 170 local groups it presented robust research on the rise of domestic abuse during the pandemic and shared it on social platforms including Twitter.

Through this, the charity secured around £30 million in emergency funding from the government to tackle domestic abuse and violence against women and girls, and subsequent campaigning led to top-up funding of £12 million.