Tag: charity

This is the last of our ‘Ten people you should know about’ series and this time it’s the turn of the leaders. We want to highlight ten leaders, in the social good space, who we think should be on your radar – if they’re not already! We’d also love to hear who you think is a great leader so we can follow them – let us know by tweeting us @Lightful.

Although World Social Media Day was at the end of June, it got us thinking about what it takes to be a social media manager. What skills and qualities do you need to be great at your job?

In the second post of this two-part series, we look at ways in which social media can play a role in soliciting major gifts fundraising, and the stewardship and acknowledgement piece that every good fundraiser knows is crucial to building long-term, meaningful relationships. Missed Part 1? Start here.

Individual giving and campaign teams in non-profits and social enterprises have become more and more adept at using social media, but often overlook, or don’t systematise, the role that it can play for major gifts fundraising.

It’s imperative for charities to think about the digital experience they provide for their users in a holistic way. This is something that Nancy Scott, Search Lead at Cancer Research UK, is extremely familiar with. We caught up with Nancy to talk about the ways in which charitable and beyond profit organisations can approach SEO, and some of the most common challenges she sees these organisations face.

Hello and thanks for tuning in. When a few of us got together to set up Lightful, we really wanted to help strengthen relationships between people who want a better world and the great causes making it happen. It’s thrilling to see it start to come together, and I’m so pleased to welcome you to our new website, new brand and visual identity, and the resources / blog part of our site.

If you work in any kind of professional communications role, you’ve probably heard of something like ‘authentic communications’ or maybe ‘authentic voice’. What does this mean? How can I find it? And is it a good idea?

If you were to purely take national newspaper headlines or the evening news as your guide to what’s going on, you might conclude that the world is a very scary place. Equally you may conclude that newspapers and TV channels tend to favour headlines that are shocking or dramatic. Terrorist attacks, political scandals, impending economic disasters. So where does that leave the issues that many of us work on at charities and social enterprises; those issues that sit in the category important, but seldom urgent? How can you engage journalists in your work?

Whether it’s a captivating book, a TV show you can’t stop watching or the tale of a friend’s adventure, a good story makes your feel something. That’s the magic of storytelling, it allows you to tap into people’s emotions. Since we can remember, stories have been moving us, they can make us laugh and cry, feel happy and sad, inspire us and discourage us (and sometimes all of the above). They are the most powerful tool we have to capture people’s hearts, minds and imaginations.

Last year it may have seemed like all our simmering divisions were no longer content merely to be topics for heated debate, but were compelled to bubble up and erupt on the surface. The US elections, Brexit and ongoing conflict in the Middle East illustrated some of our most entrenched divisions.