Bright One client The DoNation is looking for a motivated and driven marketing intern with an interest in sustainability, behaviour change and communications. The DoNation is on the look-out for someone who can support the team in increasing The DoNation’s presence among key sporting organisations and environmental networks and support the development and implementation of The DoNation’s broader marketing strategy.

The DoNation is a dynamic start-up with a small team and the intern will therefore be able to experience all aspects hands-on, developing The DoNation’s various communications offline as well as online.

Details:

Location: London

Hours: 3-4 days a week

Duration: 3 months

Salary: Voluntary with expenses

Website: www.thedonation.org.uk 

Application deadline: Monday 15^th August

There’s much more info to find here and if you’ve got further questions, email Hermione at Hermione@thedonation.org.uk

Last week, our very own Dan Howe took part in a Q&A on the Guardian Social Enteprise Network. Below are his “best bits”, but you can also catch the rest of the experts’ advice over on the Guardian.

Research your social media audience: There are some research tools out there, like Rapleaf, which can identify the social networks your audience are registered with from their email addresses. You could use these, as well as speaking to your current users to see what online communities they are part of, to develop your social media strategy.

Start by listening: When it comes to first steps with Twitter, like most other social networks, they have their own etiquette and unwritten rules. When starting out, listening can be just as important as participating. Spend some time in the online communities to gain an understanding of what is the best way to approach your audience.

QR Codes don’t work: I did an experiment recently where I printed a bunch of QR codes out, pointing to a trackable link, and attached them to posters. I still have yet to have a single user open the link. Although they might be useful once they become more regularly seen, at the moment I wouldn’t count on them.

Facebook ads are useful: Facebook ads are costly, but they can be very specific. On a recent non-profit campaign, I experimented and spent US$25 on them. I got 124 new fans as a result. I targeted the ads to users who “liked” very specific topics related to my campaign, and they were all users who became very engaged.

Members of the Bright One community had the fantastic opportunity of meeting with global representatives of PR agency Edelman two weeks ago at an interactive workshop session at The Landmark London Hotel. The session was set up together with Bright One ambassador Robert Phillips, President and CEO of Edelman EMEA, and 13 Bright One charities came along for tips and ideas on how best to communicate their causes.

Representatives from Edelman offices around the world took part in the 2-hour long session discussing areas such as fundraising, communicating social impact, digital media, and corporate engagement. Each Bright One charity had the opportunity to speak to seven teams during the session in order to learn as much as possible during the afternoon.

Before attending the workshops, the charities were keen on finding out more about issues like funding and communicating to different kinds of audiences. Additionally, they wanted to know more about how to use social media, how to work with celebrities, and how best to approach the private sector for funding and support. These matters were all answered by the honest and professional Edelman PR practitioners who gave great advice to all participating charities. Their expertise was highly appreciated amongst the participants with many expressing positive comments on the fact that they were able to receive frank comments from professionals with a new perspective. One participant said:

“Knowing that they had no personal agenda and that they had no need to be overly polite or enthusiastic (i.e. they weren’t ‘on the sell’), meant that their advice meant a lot more”

A fresh perspective is always helpful and it definitely benefited the Bright One charities taking part in the session. Clear messaging and strategic thinking were common themes during the afternoon with several Edelman representatives arguing in favour of speaking a simple and informative language towards all stakeholders. The importance of being able to communicate your message in a short paragraph or a 20-second pitch was highlighted together with significant aspects of presenting your impact. Just describing the cause will most likely not be enough if you don’t present what your charity is doing to solve the problem.

The Bright One charities have all got amazing stories to tell and the Edelman practitioners therefore encouraged them all to make sure the stories are being told well. These comments were greatly valued amongst the charities and they left the Landmark feeling motivated to work on clear messaging and develop a more strategic approach when communicating with stakeholders.

The Bright One team sneaked in and took part as well and we had great advice from some very impressive Edelman employees. They gave inspirational comments in regards to our digital communications and how to communicate our social impact so we will consider this feedback when doing our best to improve Bright One.

A great afternoon had by all, and a massive thank you to all Edelman representatives who took part and to all charities that came along and joined us!

The Big Venture Challenge is a national competition to find the 25 most ambitious social entrepreneurs in England, which UnLtd and the Big Lottery Fund have launched to fill the ‘missing middle’ of the social investment marketplace.

Bright One will be providing access to a PR team for each Big Venture Challenge winner.

Ben Matthews, founder of Bright One, said:

We’re delighted to offer our support to the next generation of leading social enterprises in the UK. The social enterprise sector grows year on year thanks to the ideas and vision of ambitious social entrepreneurs across the country. The importance of communicating how this is a different way of doing business is essential, and we look forward to helping social enterprises get their message across and differentiate from themselves to grow the sector even further.

The fund, which opened for applications on Monday 9 May, will provide £175,000 to 25 social entrepreneurs with ‘rapidly scalable’ ventures.

Winners of Big Venture Challenge will get an initial £25K grant and the chance to access up to £150K of seed funding if matched by loans or equity from co-investors, plus first class business support and mentoring designed to keep pace with high growth social entrepreneurs.

Those interested in applying can download the application form here or for more information visit their website at www.bigventurechallenge.com

Merism Capital, the social impact seed fund, has partnered with Crowdcube, the first crowdfunding website in the world to offer ordinary people equity in exchange for investment. The partnership will support social entrepreneurs and businesses that are seeking investment capital of below £50,000.

”I’m a big believer in crowdfunding and this partnership complements our work really well whilst also growing the retail investor base for social businesses. ” says Stephen Rockman, founder of Merism Capital, “Merism Capital connects constantly with social entrepreneurs, and because we focus on investment opportunities between £50,000 and £150,000, we can’t always work with everyone we think may be promising. So for those seeking smaller seed rounds, Crowdcube gives us a fantastic alternative funding channel.”

Crowdcube provides smaller funds for new ventures and uses the web-based notion of ‘crowdfunding’ where a community of like minded people pool their money and knowledge together to back an idea, business or person. Entrepreneurs can bypass business angel or venture capital funding and use Crowdcube as a platform to connect with a nation of ‘armchair dragons’ to find investment. Crowdcube will offer a reduced fee of 3% (normally 5%) to social enterprises referred by Merism.

‘We see a partnership with Merism Capital as a great fit for Crowdcube.’ says Darren Westlake, managing director of Crowdcube, ”Both organisations target equity investment and share similar goals – to create worthwhile businesses which are profitable and offer a return for all involved.”

Visit Crowdcube to learn more about how crowdsourcing can help fund new social enterprise.

Bright One was invited to be on the panel of a Guardian Q&A on “What can social enterprises do to reach that wider audience, and develop greater recognition of the sector as a whole?”

The Q&A was part of the Guardian Social Enterprise Network, with a panel was made up of:

• Becky John, whomadeyourpants?
• Chris Smith, Swarm
• David Pidsley, DavidPidsley.com
• Fran Gorman, Social Enterprise Coalition
• Kim Hawke, Neo
• Lisa Wimborne, Society Media
• Nicola Jones, Social Investment Business
• Rebecca Rapson, Re Zolve

And our very own Ben Matthews, founder of Bright One.

nickchristoforou kick off the discussion with an argument that social enterprises can’t rely on their social credentials alone and have to be better than their competitors – whether public or private:

“Once you are in this position where you are competing on quality, price, process etc. that’s when your purpose and values really start to count. Clients, customers and funders do really care that you are making a difference but only after you’ve ticked all the other boxes.”

A question from @youbloodydidwhat – “Are we really still in an age where nobody knows anything about marketing?” – was answered by kimhawke that “it is more a question of what to say, how to communicate what has become quite a loosely defined sector.”:

“There are lots of challenges just in the term ‘Social Enterprise’ – it does not incorporate the environmental aspects. The recently launched Social Enterprise Mark has used the strapline ‘trading for people and the planet’ to overcome that. It also describes what you do and not what you are. There is an argument in there for rebranding the sector!”

This point was echoed by Ben Matthews, who added:

“There’s a wealth of information out there about marketing – blogs, sites, forums, LinkedIn, etc – so people should be able to get up to speed with the basics relatively quickly. What is perhaps lacking (and where social enterprise suffers) is someone or a group of people within the sector who really grab hold of the term social enterprise and make the general public aware of it through marketing. The Mark is a good start towards this, but perhaps could be marketed ‘better’ to reach the greater public consciousness and truly define what social enterprise stands for.”

As the conversation moved on to general conversation around marketing and PR, Adrian Ashton brought up a valid and vital question that hadn’t been asked:

There’s a fundamental question about raising the profile of your social enterprise that I can’t see appearing yet - ”WHY?” There’s squillions of ways to raise an enterprises’ profile, but all take time (if not money) – and that’s your most precious resource. So why do you want to raise your profile?

Ben Matthews replied by emphasising that it is vital that comms activity is linked to business objectives, whether that is to increase sales or increase social impact:

“But column inches don’t matter if it’s not having a positive impact on your business – and, most importantly, you’ve measured that impact.”

Nic Jones echoed these thoughts with her own angle:

“It is really important when you partake in any comms or marketing activity to measure it. Some activities will be easier than others to measure, e.g. how many stories does a press release generate, how many people view a you tube video, whereas others may not be so simple. It’s important to understand if you are using your precious time wisely through one method or another. It may be that you enjoy partaking in a certain comms or marketing activity, however if it isn’t achieving the desired impact, it might not be a great use of your time.”

There were more excellent points made throughout the Q&A,along with many enthusiastic and well informed responses to the topic. We highly recommend that you view the whole discussion or you can also read David Pidsley’s write up of the event.

What’s even more exciting for us is that the Social Enterprise Mark is also a client, as we helped launch the Mark in February 2010 and have been working with them to develop their online presence and engage with social entrepreneurs through social media.

The Social Enterprise Mark is the brand for social enterprises, businesses that have a socially driven mission. Social enterprises are working to make a difference across the UK and beyond, but not enough people know what they are or how they work. The Social Enterprise Mark aims to raise awareness of what social enterprises do in order to get more people to buy from, engage with, start up and work for social enterprises.

You can find out more by watching the video below:

Ben Matthews, Founder of Bright One, said: “Bright One is absolutely committed to supporting charities, social enterprise and other third sector organisations in their communications activities, allowing them to raise awareness and much needed funds for their causes. We’re really proud to have been awarded the Social Enterprise Mark, which shows that we have created a sustainable organisation that makes a real impact to both volunteers and charities.”

Lucy Findlay champion from the Social Enterprise Mark Company, added: “We are delighted to award the prestigious Social Enterprise Mark to Bright One. Social enterprises come in all shapes and forms so it’s great to see a vital voluntary organisation understanding the importance of being part of the wider social enterprise brand.”

You can find out more about the Social Enterprise Mark at www.socialenterprisemark.org.uk.

Social Impact Camp is back! We are happy to announce the details of the next Social Impact Camp. A big thank you goes to the London Early Years Foundation for hosting the event..

• Date: Wednesday 14th April 2010
• Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm
• Location:  London Early Years Foundation, 121 Marsham Street, Lonon SW1P 4LP (Google Map)

You can reserve your place by signing up on the Social Impact Camp wiki.

Social Impact Camp is a monthly meet up for people to discuss different ways of measuring social impact. We compare tactics, think of ways to improve it and wonder if there will ever be a standard set of metrics against which to judge success by. It’s a friendly place, we don’t try and sell to each other; instead we’re honest, pretty and will never wear name tags.

To get a feel for what has happened at past events, take a look at the fantastic blog posts by Rob Greenland of The Social Business and Max St John of Nixon McInnes.

We look forward to seeing you all there for some great conversations…and lots of tea and biscuits.

PR – or public relations – is all about reputation. It’s the result of what you do, what you say, and what others say about you. It is used to gain trust and understanding between an organisation and its various stakeholders, whether that’s employees, customers, investors, or the local community.

PR isn’t just for big companies using national newspapers or television. Even the smallest start up or social enterprise can use PR opportunities to catch the eye of its local audience. But PR is often misunderstood, its practises are often unclear and how to ‘do’ PR is a mystery to many people.

I’ve pulled together some top tips to help make the practise of PR a bit clearer, help you generate some positive PR with limited resources, and offer some simple advice to get your organisation’s own PR and communications activity up and running.

What is Public Relations?
As I mentioned before, PR is all about reputation. Public relations professionals use many different techniques as part of their PR campaigns: from media relations and lobbying, to speaking at conferences, and more. PR is different from marketing and advertising, because with PR you do pay the newspapers and TV channels for the media exposure it secures. It’s the credibility of third-party endorsement that gives PR its power. For more information on the background of PR and its best practices, take a look at the free guides that the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) has put together.

The Media is a Channel
Many people misunderstand that PR is all about engaging the media and using the coverage generated to put a spotlight on your organisation. But should be made clear is that the media is just a channel, a way to reach your stakeholders. This means that your organisation needs to have its messaging right, its proposition and the impact it makes clear, before you undertake any PR activity. The basics of getting a PR campaign together are covered by Striding Out’s useful guides here.

The Rise of Social Media
Understanding that the media is just a channel to reach your stakeholders is especially important to understand with the rise of social media. Social media cuts out journalist and media organisations as a channel to reach your stakeholders.  Organisations can now interact and engage directly with their stakeholders, using sites such as Facebook and Twitter, in an affordable but effective manner. A blog is also an effective way of getting your organisation’s messages, news and recent announcements out to a wide audience. There’s too much to cover off on social media here, but here’s a fantastic video from Common Craft that explains what social media is in plain English:

There’s too much about using social media to cover it here, but if you’re interested in creating a social media campaign but don’t know where to start, take a look at Content & Motion’s excellent guide here or PR 2.0’s free ebook here.

Get Your Descriptor Right
To help with your messaging, it is worthwhile creating a descriptor for your organisation. A descriptor is a short sentence, no more than a few words long, that captures what your organisation is and does. This acts as an introduction for any press releases you send out and is often used by the media to help categorise your organisation and provide a neat intro into any stories they might write about you. For example:

“Bright One, the volunteer-run communications agency, announced today that it had written a fantastic descriptor for its latest PR campaign.”

Other examples of social enterprises with good descriptors include Divine Chocolate (“The Fairtrade chocolate where the cocoa farmers own 45% of the company”) and MyBnk (“The education charity working with young people to build the knowledge, skills and confidence to manage their money effectively”). UnLtdWorld.com’s is very neat too – “a networking site for social entrepreneurs”.

If it helps you to keep your descriptor clear and succinct, try and keep it to a 140 character, twitter-style description. You could even post your descriptor in the comments below this post and we can help refine it for you.

Register on askCHARITY
askCHARITY was set up to help organisations in their work with the media. It is an online contacts book which lists organisation’s details including their key media contacts. It aims to make it easier and faster for media professionals to get in touch with charitable organisations. askCHARITY also aims to open up, hard to reach sections of the media, so by registering your organisation (which is absolutely free) you’ll stand a much better chance of journalists, broadcasters, researchers, freelancers, and every kind of media professional finding out and taking an interest in your organisation. Find out

Get Professional Help
There are lots of PR professionals out there who are looking to give back to the community and help organisations such as yours tell their story effectively. If you’re interested in bringing on some PR support, I would recommend taking a look at the Media Trust’s Media Matching service, which brings together media and communications professionals (advisers) with charities and voluntary organisations that want to improve the way they communicate. Also take a look at Bright One, the volunteer-run communications agency, who are on hand to offer charities, social enterprises and other not-for-profit organisations affordable yet effective PR and communications campaigns. Bright One helps organisations get their messages heard and offer resources so they can focus on core activities, so find out more by going to www.brightone.org.uk.

Further Reading
The PR industry has developed a fantastic culture of knowledge sharing, which means that there is plenty of information available for you to learn more about running your own campaign. As a starter, I would recommend visiting Volunteer Genie for advice on using the media to recruit the volunteers you want, reading the guide that Business Link have put together, or visiting the askCHARITY blog for lots of advice on communications.

The SHINE UnConference for Social Entrepreneurs took place last weekend at The Hub Kings Cross in London.

We were there for the first day and had what can only be described as an inspirational time. Being surrounded by those both interested in engaging with and supporting social enterprise gave the event a momentum that we’re sure many took back into their everyday lives – many of whom will be running social enterprises.

We were on a panel in the morning called ‘Question Time’, which was billed as  “a question-and-answer session with some inspirational social entrepreneurs”. The panel was hosted by Cliff Prior, CEO of UnLtd, who did a great job of facilitating the discussion between Ben Ramsden of Pants to Poverty, Davina Roberts of Punch & Juicy,and Annys Darkwa of Vision Housing. Needless to say, we were honoured to be sat alongside such fantastic social entrepreneursand hope that we gave out lots of useful advice from our own jourey so far. You can read what Nick Temple, one of the ‘social reporters’ at the event, thought of the panel here.

We even got to do a bit of social reporting ourselves, helping people to find their way around Shine and letting people who couldn’t attend the event follow along via Twitter.

We also hosted a session in the afternoon. Called ‘Social Media Media Easy’, the panel session brought together a group of online social media champions and saught to answer any questions from social entrepreneurs on how to use online communications tools to strengthen their messages. On the panel was Steve Bridger, Rachel Beer from Beautiful World, Jonathan Waddingham from Just Giving, and Nicola Jones from UnLtdWorld. The panel faced some tough questions, but when asked if they found the session useful, the resounding cheers of ‘yes!’ from the audience showed that the panel gave incisive answers using their years of experience in the field.

It’s a shame that we did miss the second day because we could have joined David Wilcox, Amy Sample Ward and Andy Gibson for the Social Collaboration Game. They were showcasing a new event format based on the content of their forthcoming book Social by Social. Luckily, David has put up a comprehensive set of notes so that we can all join in the fun.

All in all it was a fantastic event. It was a particularly special occassion for us as it was at this event in 2008 that the seed of an idea for Bright One was first planted and we haven’t looked back since.

Who knows where we’ll be next year, but one thing we can be sure of is that we’ll be first in line to attend Shine10!