Charity and Not-for-profit

charity & not-for-profit

Executive director of strategy, advocacy and communications British Red Cross With more than six years’ experience at the British Red Cross, Zoe Abrams plays a key role in communicating the charity’s stance on many critical and emotive issues. In March 2021, the organisation was one of several charities to criticise the government’s immigration plans, with Abrams stating British Red Cross had “serious concerns” about the impact some of the proposed changes could have, particularly its plan to “send traumatised people halfway round the world to Rwanda”. More recently, in August 2022 the charity published a report alongside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which found critical gaps in the UK asylum system mean people seeking safety – including those fleeing modern slavery – may be at risk of potential exploitation. The charity has found ways to make its message more accessible to the masses, with TikTok becoming a popular platform. Since posting its hand washing dance routines on TikTok at the height of the pandemic, the charity has continued to gain traction on the platform, creating a series of videos sharing helpful tools, fundraising ideas and advice on topics including natural disasters, humanitarian crisis and mental health.■

Zoe Abrams

Executive director of fundraising and marketing Cancer Research UK Philip Almond was the driving force behind Cancer Research UK’s decision last year to unify the charity’s marketing around one core message: ‘One in two of us will get cancer. All of us can support the research that will beat it’. The tagline, ‘Together, we will beat cancer’ is again designed to unite people behind the cause and raise much-needed funds. All part of its plan to drive more impactful, effective and efficient campaigns, the activity builds of its previous ‘Right Now’ campaign, which sought to show the reality of the disease. Now, however, the idea is to address the wider collective effort that can be made to beat it, from donors to volunteers, 5K runners to researchers. At the time of launch Almond said: “Having a single creative approach across campaigns ensures our marketing activity tells a consistent message and works together to create a bigger impact. By making our marketing as effective as it can be, we safeguard the valuable contributions made by all our supporters as every pound we spend is working its hardest.”■

Philip Almond

Director of fundraising and marketing Disasters Emergency Committee It might have a team of just 23 permanent staff but the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) still carries significant clout on the international humanitarian stage. It brings together 15 leading UK aid charities to raise urgent funds in times of crisis and coordinate the UK’s public response to overseas disasters. As director of fundraising and marketing, Simon Beresford is a crucial part of that response team, overseeing the launch of many large-scale appeals at the organisation. This includes its Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal, created to raise funds and awareness of the conflict in Ukraine and the more than 6 million people who have fled their homes since it began. Beresford and the team were awarded a Guinness World Record for the success of the appeal, which raised more money than any other online campaign in one week. Indeed, it raised over £300m in two months with donations still pouring in. It’s just one in a string of appeals that Beresford has coordinated since he joined in 2018, including the Afghanistan Crisis Appeal, which has raised over £44m and is still ongoing, and more recently the Pakistan Floods Appeal.■

Simon Beresford

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Chief communications officer GambleAware Alexia Clifford has just joined charity GambleAware to lead its marketing efforts after several years leading communications for Public Health England, most recently as director of marketing, a position she took on in 2020 having been at the organisation since its inception. It was a well-deserved promotion, with Clifford having already led on lauded campaigns such as ‘Stoptober’, which has helped more than a million people quit smoking and ‘Every Mind Matters’, England’s first national mental health literacy campaign. During her time at the organisaton she was also critical in the roll out of a suite of new digital products, such as the NHS 'Couch to 5K' app. Clifford was constantly adding to these successes, with the launch of a new ‘Better Health’ campaign in 2021, highlighting the free evidence-based support available to people to help them achieve a healthier weight. And this year she launched a national cervical screening campaign urging women not to ignore their invite after research revealed nearly one in three women are failing to attend appointments, which is putting people at risk.■

Alexia Clifford

Head of brand and marketing The Trussell Trust The Trussell Trust has found its network of food banks in ever growing demand across the UK as first the pandemic and now a cost of living crisis leaves an increasing number of households unable to afford essentials. In fact, in 2021/22, the charity said it distributed more than 2.1 million emergency food parcels - 832,000 of which went to children – representing an increase of 14% versus before the pandemic. Compared to five years ago meanwhile, demand has grown by 81%. That creates a huge task for its head of brand and marketing Eve Crook, who, along with her team, is responsible for keeping the charity front of mind and communicating its wider calls for structural change to combat poverty. Crook, who joined in January 2021 following more than a decade at The National Trust, has done a great job so far, with its high media profile leading to a sharp rise in income over the last year. In fact, its latest accounts show a surplus income of £40m, largely thanks to growing public donations driven by the efforts of Crook and the wider Trussell Trust team.■

Eve Crook

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CMO CALM Matt Jennings changed both jobs and continents when he joined the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) as CMO in October 2021. Formerly at Google, Jennings had been based in Singapore for nearly a decade, where he most recently worked as head of the tech giant’s Social Lab, tasked with building a team of marketers to make up its centre of excellence for social marketing in the region, working from a pilot model before scaling up across APAC. At CALM, Jennings is at the helm of a very different sort of organisation. First launched as a suicide prevention helpline in 1997, the charity now campaigns to raise awareness, banish stereotypes and end stigma around the topic of suicide more broadly, with the campaigns of which Jennings is now leading a cornerstone of that work. Already the CMO is making his mark, with the launch of a major new campaign in June. ‘The Last Photo’ featured a 90-second TV ad showing the last pictures and videos of real people prior to dying by suicide, and picked up an award for its compelling content only a month later.■

Matt Jennings

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Director of fundraising Mind Not only have conversations around mental health become more normalised in recent years, but the pandemic has fuelled a slew of employers to integrate this change in a more concrete way, with the introduction of new tools and technologies designed to support staff wellbeing. At the centre of this ongoing conversation is Mind, which uses its expert voice to campaign for both societal and legislative changes. Current campaigns include '#FundTheHubs', pushing for support for those aged 16 to 25, and calls to reform the “outdated” Mental Health Act. Facilitating much of this action is Mind’s director of fundraising Kathleen Miles, tasked with finding ever more creative ways to bring in the donations that allow the charity to do its work. Having spent more than two decades at the charity, Miles is responsible for the direction, development and delivery of all its fundraising activity, as well as its Workplace Wellbeing hub, which delivers a range of initiatives designed to elevate the conversation around wellbeing in both the public and private sector. These include Mind's Training and Consultancy and the Workplace Wellbeing Index.■

Kathleen Miles

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Brand and marketing director Macmillan Cancer Support Macmillan Cancer Support is one of the most recognisable charity brands in the UK and that’s in no small part thanks to the prolific work of its marketing team, now led by brand and marketing director Anthony Newman. But that level of awareness hasn’t stopped the charity from constantly re-evaluating and reframing its approach to ensure it retains relevance, not least as it navigates the blow to funding caused by the pandemic. For Newman, who joined in 2020 from Merlin Entertainments, that’s meant focusing the work of its teams with the creation of brand platform, ‘Whatever it Takes’, and creative that shows the breadth of roles staff perform. In July, the next iteration of this campaign took the form of a partnership with Channel 4, and once again demonstrated the willingness of Newman to stretch the charity’s marketing muscles into new areas. Instead of its usual 30-second slots, the charity produced four short documentary films to be broadcast as idents around full-length documentary ‘Super Surgeons’ featuring staff at the Royal Marsden.■

Anthony Newman

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Head of media relations and communications Women's Aid Teresa Parker isn’t afraid to leverage popular culture to get the message of Women’s Aid across. In July she entered a controversial public debate regarding hit ITV show Love Island. The head of media relations and communications spoke out strongly on what she called “misogynistic and controlling behaviour” on the show, responding to a slew of tweets the charity was being tagged in by viewers to highlight the behaviour of some contestants. More recently she partnered with the UK’s most read national newspaper, The Sun, to launch ‘Speak Out’. The campaign zeroed in on research that shows the risk of rising house bills on victims looking to seek refuge and featuring the voice of the charity’s patron, Spice Girl Mel B. Prior to this she spent two years working with EastEnders on a storyline of domestic abuse that culminated in the character Chantelle being murdered by her abuser, which was discussed extensively across the UK when it aired. With more than two decades under her belt at the charity, it’s clear Parker knows exactly how to amplify hard-hitting issues in a way that makes the maximum impact.■

Teresa Parker

Chief marketing and fundraising officer British Heart Foundation As with many charities, donations to the British Heart Foundation plummeted during the pandemic, as the public’s philanthropic attentions turned elsewhere. But its chief marketing and fundraising officer, Claire Sadler, quickly developed a plan to get it back on track when she joined from Direct Line in January 2021. Only six months into the role, Sadler shared the changes she was implementing to create a more integrated approach at the organisation. This involved restructuring its marketing team to bring marketing and fundraising under one roof and creating a more united look and feel across all marketing and communications initiatives that she believes had previously been a little “disjointed”. While creating an emotional connection is still important for the charity, Sadler has also increased its emphasis on the science. Since joining she has added more focus to the transformative, cutting-edge work the British Heart Foundation funds, putting it at the centre of its marketing strategy. In August, that took the form of a creative audio campaign, which disrupted the flow of commercial radio ads with the sound of a flatlining heart monitor. This was followed by a message about how the charity is funding research into silencing faulty genes that can cause sudden cardiac death in under-35s.■

Claire Sadler

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