1 million euro international initiative supports small charities’ PR and content marketing

Up to one hundred and fifty charities in six countries will benefit from a 1 million euro initiative to make their communications activities more efficient and impactful.

The Social Innovation Project which officially launches today from digital communications technology pioneers Mynewsdesk will supply each charity with a new all-in-one brand newsroom and multimedia public relations platform free of charge as well as expert training and communications strategy support.

Employees in Mynewsdesk’s Swedish, German, UK, Danish, Norwegian and Singapore offices have each chosen small and worthy charities that align with their personal social concerns. Mynewsdesk’s UK team partnered with JustGiving to identify the small charities that would benefit most from this programme.

The newsrooms will make the charities’ communications more efficient by enabling them to disseminate their content to all of their social media channels, email their distribution lists and update their website, with a single click of a button. The tool will then provide valuable insights into how each piece of content is performing, including a list of those who have opened and viewed the content sent to them via email. The network tool will also help the charities to identify and build relationships with key journalists and online influencers who can help them with their campaigns.

The UK charities set to benefit from the project include:

Tree of Hope

SportsAid

Stroke Association

the FSI

The Zero Alpha Mobile Foundation

Calm

Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation

Breast Cancer Care

Missing People

Rays of Sunshine

SMA Trust

Le Cure de France

Peter Britten, Managing Director of Mynewsdesk UK, said, “Small charities simply do not have the advertising budgets of large charities and so are reliant on public relations and content marketing for both fundraising and campaigning on issues. Small charities often work on specific issues so are able to give insightful expert comment and offer content of strong media value if only they had more time and contemporary tools to react to the news agenda. Earlier this year the UK government announced plans to cut £2.8bn in public funding for the third sector over the next five years, meaning small charities will be under increasing pressure to work with limited resources and significantly reduced government support. The online newsrooms will give charities the easy to use tools to efficiently run more integrated communications campaigns across multiple platforms and channels using a variety of formats – text, video and images. The professional presentation of the newsrooms will have more impact upon opinion formers and donors.”

Breege Zachary, Communications Manager at SportsAid, said, “We support over a thousand young people every year and promoting their achievements through Mynewsdesk makes a huge difference to them and our fundraising efforts. It also saves us time and we’re already seeing our work being more widely recognised and reported on as a result, which is fantastic.”

Peter Ingman, CEO of Mynewsdesk, said, “We’ve given every Mynewsdesk employee across the international business the opportunity to support a cause they personally care passionately about using our newsroom tool as well as their own skills and expertise during their working hours. This project will improve charities’ fundraising and awareness campaigns. It will also give Mynewsdesk’s employees an even greater sense that their work personally contributes to benefiting society over-and-above the role they play in helping organisations to communicate better with their stakeholders."

Watch the video below to find out more about the Social Innovation Project, the symbol of initiative - Impact the elephant which was designed by artist Marcel Schreur and how Stroke Association is using their newsroom.

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Notes to editors

For further information on the project or to have a demo of the platform the charities will be receiving please contact Laura McLean, Communications Executive at Mynewsdesk UK on 07860 755 772 or email at laura.mclean@mynewsdesk.com.