These notes summarise the emergent themes and issues arising from the sessions, the presentations and the discussions.

Susan Osborne- National Campaign Director, RNID
Presentation on the British third sector communications over the last 20 years, highlighting the attention paid (or not) to ensuring communications expertise is available in Executive teams and Boards of Trustees. (presentation on website)
Carlo Gubitosa - Peace Link
With reference to L. Boltanski’s research 2000 (Suffering and distance: morality, media and politics), Carlo proposed that there are three methods of ‘telling’ about social pain and distress:

1. Denunciation, including showing the causes of XXX, thereby triggering outrage and donations. The aim is to create empathy and the will to remove the causes of the distress (usually found in blogs and 3^rd sector orgs)
2. Describing the feelings of those who have endured/suffered – for example the gratitude of recipients, in awe of those who take part in rescue operations. In these communication the causes of the situation are often invisible
3. Offering the “aesthetic” aspect of the situation i.e. describing the poverty, distress of the disaster in order to draw the reader in and create an immediate “are there” experience.

Carlo’s advice was :

• Be aware of which approach you decide to use and why
• Select the appropriate strategy for the approach (see above)
• Be clear about the purpose of your communications e.g. fundraising, influencing, stimulating volunteers

Carlo Spoldi – (re OCCS Report) artist & voluntary sector contributor This was a survey/research of social communication in Italy which looked at campaigns in the public and private sectors to try and understand how they approach these. Findings relevant here:

• Government does not appear to capture information about the outcomes of its campaigns
• Government therefore cannot know the consequences of its campaigns and why they are or are not effective

Carlo suggested that the questions remaining were:

1. Does social communication produce effective results?
2. Which elements work?
3. Which strategies work and for which groups of people?
4. Given the above why does government undertake communication campaigns?
5. Which version of the ‘truth’ should an organisation (public or 3^rd sector) tell or communicate, i.e. what are the ethical issues

Carlo proposed that the resulting issues for 3^rd sector are:

• The current state of knowledge and expertise about communications in voluntary sector (or lack of it)
• The lack of understanding and priority given to communications – potential waste of opportunity and resources
• Need to examine ethical dilemmas and how to resolve them
• How best to measure impact and value for money
• Clarity about what kinds of messages to broadcast

Jude Freeman Head of Camberwell School of Art
Observed that visually, 3^rd sector communications have much in common with each other in terms of images used; typography, tone, size and use of colour.
Having illustrated the proposition, she posed some questions for participants to consider in thinking about using creativity and communications effectively. (Ref. Saatchi “Social work – cause related marketing” edited by Mark Thompson)

• What is the relationship between mainstream advertising and 3^rd sector communications?
• How might we imbue 3^rd sector messages with a sense of joy?
• Is there a role for humour? (showed some examples of message delivery using cartoons)

Jude offered a definition of ‘a creative’ as being…. “a catalyst; someone who poses new questions; someone not from your world who is ‘affirmatively disruptive' and thereby creates a step change in organisational thinking”. She further suggested that the there is a real need for and value to having creative people in organisations (Ref Cox Review of Creativity in Business). The report emphasises that success is predicated on the need for ‘injections’ of creativity and ensuring that organisations have the appetite for their contribution. Matters to be addressed in relation to this are:

• How to embed creative people in the core of the organisation
• How to use such people
• Knowing how to set about briefing and engaging external creative specialists

The final part of the presentation offered starting points to enabling the creativity within our organisations (see Guardian article “Feel–Good Factories”)

• Develop your awareness of creative people within your organisation e.g. identify who it is who problem solves or thinks outside the box
• Understand their hopes, aspirations and values and how they relate to your organisation
• Consider how best to harness their insights (based on the above) about the organisation and its stakeholders to the strategy and communications processes

CASE STUDIES
Selected participants had prepared and presented a case study of their organisation’s communications, which was reviewed by the other participants, led by an expert panel (Susan Osborne and Jude Freeman) and.
Below is the summary of comments or advice offered by the specialists to those who presented.
Black Health Agency (UK) – service delivery to socially excluded people with health difficulties
Priscilla Nkwenti, CEO of BHA, presented a summary of the history and work of BHA; show-cased images and text from the annual report and other key documents.
Panel Comments:

• Good strong images of users
• Examine the name; it may now be incongruous with the work being undertaken and some images in the organisation’s communications
• Review the relationship of services to the messages – do you need them all for your portfolio of communications?
• Focus on how your creative communications can enable you to retain a national profile without spreading the services too thinly

Addaction (UK) – service delivery to those with additions
Rosie Brocklehurst, Communications Director of Addaction, offered a history of the organisation and presented a promotional CDRom with some background information to its making.
Panel Comments:

• Effective to use users own words and their faces
• Having monochrome and colour sections to the film does not necessarily add to impact
• Dilemma between depicting the afflictions of users addictions and offering misleadingly reassuring messages need to be resolved
• Need to decide how best to create impactful communications that use beneficiaries but respect their personal dignity

CIVS International (UK) –promoting peace & co-operation for children
Antti Kangaslahti, Marketing and Project Manager for CISV, described the history and a recent membership survey/research on re-branding. He explained the shortcoming of multi-national logos currently used to brand CISV.
Panel comments:

• Current branding full of vitality – that’s its strength
• Survey of stakeholders may have taken too long (survey fatigue)
• Consider why you think you need to bring conformity to the branding
• Don’t do it without the support of your main stakeholder resource (the volunteers)

Antoniano (Italy) – service delivery, performing arts, media training
Alesandro Caspoli, CEO of Antoniano, provided a history of the organisation (i.e. within the Catholic Church) and showed a CD Rom of past and current work. Identified one problem as being how to create cohesion of communication across very diverse services.
Panel Comments:

• Very powerful sense of mission comes through
• Coherent communication does not need to lead to standardisation; don’t allow the latter to destroy the vitality of your message
• Use of the organisation’s founder is an asset in your communications
• Highlight the organisation’s strength as being its religious values (differentiate this from any religious work)

Riccardo Bagnato Head of communications VITA (Italy) Riccardo gave a presentation about communications and the relationship between the media and the Third Sector in Italy. He also described the work of VITA, an Italian based pan-European magazine for the third sector.
Fabrizio Cassinelli- journalist founder of Medicare (Italy) Addressed the question ‘what do journalists do for the third sector’?
SUMMARY OF ISSUES ARISING FROM THESE TWO PRESENTATIONS

• If you want coverage in the media it is critical to understand the needs and requirements of journalists and their world
• Encourage and enable journalists to understand your world and the issues you are dealing with
• Recognise and work to accessing the wealth and the potential impact of media communication for third sector organisations by building a network of skilled and experienced journalists
• Recognise and plan for the growth in power and influence of web-based communications – for engaging both current stakeholders and the wider public
• Good working relations with journalists can result in benefits including access to communications expertise, which small organisations in particular cannot afford to buy.
• In order to ensure a fruitful relationship and a regular flow of information, it is critical that the trust of both parties is retained

Moira Swinbank – Timebank (UK) – communications capacity building charity
Moira presented a case study of a third sector second-tier organisation which works to enable voluntary organisations to maximise the use of volunteers. Highlighted the key ‘rules’ in undertaking creative communications campaigns.
(presentation on web-site)

This was followed by
Carlo Spoldi – artist and nfp contributor (Italy)
Carlo’s presentation focused on key questions about perception. He suggested that there was now more than ever a challenge to the notion of ‘truth’ resulting from fundamental changes to the way in which information/communication is created, edited and potentially manipulated.

SUMMARY OF ISSUES ARISING FROM THESE TWO PRESENTATIONS

• There is no difference in strategy between commercial and 3^rd sector campaigns; the differences lie in the purpose and the under-lying values
• Speakers highlighted the need to ‘sell’ an idea (ratter than a fact)
• Both emphasised the link between selling the idea and precipitating action
• The need to ensure that integrity and consistency of medium and message are retained within the application creative approaches. This will help to ensure trust and recognition of the campaign and the organisation
• Regard the volunteer donor (of time, Money or other resources) as a customer – ensure you research their needs and look after them
• Investigate which visual images and messages are needed for each target audience
• The best creative communications (in terms of outcomes) seem to combine on-line marketing and promotions with face-to-face activity or action.

Final session – participants comments
Delegate’s said that the workshop showed them the importance of:

• Planning
• Affirmative disruption
• Having a clear and simple marketing strategy
• Self knowledge and clarity of vision
• Having a meaning behind everything we do/communicate
• Having a dynamic approach, involving good research.
• Establishing the brand through action
• Making full use of the internet (using the examples of Timebank, VITA and MediaCare)
• Bringing new creative ideas to the team, but also to get more creativity from the team
• Ourselves, our colleagues and our staff being exposed to new ideas
• Giving communications a greater priority at board meetings
• Listening to the passions of your staff, and learning about the passions of your target audience, so that you’re not connecting people but ‘connecting passions’
• Questioning your organisation and yourself – what are you doing? Who for? How? Why?

Other comments included:

• The workshop touched on convictions already present, and confirmed thoughts delegates had already had but never articulated
• Delegates enjoyed the translation
• Delegates gained enthusiasm
• There is a growing awareness that communications issues/strategies have become central to the delivery of the third sector’s work
• The workshop highlighted two forms of communications: inside-out (how you communicate with those outside the organisation), and outside-in (how you listen to you staff, stakeholders and target audience)
• Many delegates got exciting new ideas
• The workshop gave delegates a licence to think creatively
• Many delegates said that they will now draw up an action plan for how to advance their organisations’ communications
• The positive feedback from the SWOT was appreciated (Addaction)