ACS Cobham International School asked us to help their students develop a communications and fundraising strategy to support their charitable work through the use of social media.  The school has a Disaster Relief Fund and a Namibia Project which students can volunteer to be part of.   The school wanted not only to engage new students and get them involved, but also to show off the work the groups of students had done to donors and supporters as well as previous students.

Approach

We worked with two separate charitable groups within the school. Beginning with a break down of different social media platforms that were available, we discussed which platforms were most relevant to the work that the students were doing.

We used group activities and evaluation exercises to give the students an understanding of how other charities are using social media to market their work. The students also used the day to discuss and plan how they could reach more students and get them involved in fundraising for these projects.

With the help of the school mentors, we guided the students through a series of scenarios to ensure they understood the importance of a proper social media strategy and helped them put their own strategy in place.

Outcome

The students and mentors left the day with confidence in the use of several different social media applications and the knowledge to gain new followers by reaching out to their audience. They had a strategy in place and had taken the first important steps to showing their charitable work off to the world.

What the School says

“Thank you for all the training and support you gave us on using social media platforms to enhance our student led charitable work. It feels like we are making important steps towards changing the way we think about communication. We will look forward to working with you again in the future.” Fran Bidwell, Special Programmes Coordinator

YouthNet asked us to deliver a tailor-made podcasting workshop to help them improve the audio content on TheSite.org, a YouthNet website that provides information and support for young people aged 16-24.

Approach

The YouthNet team already had podcasting skills and were producing one or two podcasts each month on a range of subjects for TheSite.org.

We developed a bespoke workshop for the team, focusing on the key skills they needed to develop to produce top quality podcast packages that appeal to young people.

At the end of the workshop we brought in a Radio 1 producer to give feedback on the work created by the participants.

What YouthNet says

“Spending a day with sounddelivery was so useful for our team; it has really helped to improve our audio content on TheSite.org. Everyone benefitted from the day, from people who’d never used recording equipment before through to former radio producers who needed a confidence boost.” Oliver Benson, Editorial Manager, YouthNet

See also

More case studies on our work with YouthNet

Creating and sharing first-hand accounts of their work is a vital part of the Family Holiday Association’s communications strategy. Our brief was to help the charity harness the potential of audio for digital storytelling to reach and engage supporters.

Approach

Our team of experienced producers visited families on breaks organised through the Family Holiday Association, to see the organisation’s work in action. We recorded the experiences of family members and used the content to produce short audio case studies that provide a genuine, personal insights into the work of the organisation.

We feel it’s important for families to be able to tell their own stories in their own words, so we’ve also trained several families to record their holiday experiences in a diary format. We provide ongoing audio production support for the Family Holiday Support, but we’ve also trained the chief executive and other members of staff so that they can record stories and produce engaging audio features without outside help.

Outcome

The audio diaries and case studies produced by the sounddelivery team and by the Family Holiday Association are an important feature of the charity’s website. The Family Holiday Association also uses audio stories to showcase its work and support fundraising efforts in other ways, including:

• sending audio case studies to marathon runners to use as part of their fundraising activity
• inform and inspire trustees and donors at events such as the AGM
• bring the charity’s work to life in funding bids and in its annual review
• provide engaging content for the media – Family Holiday Association audio stories have appeared on societyguardian.co.uk and the BBC website.

What the client says

“The Family Holiday Association has worked with sounddelivery on several audio projects and we are delighted with the results. It is important that families are put at ease in order to create compelling content and impact and sounddelivery has done just that. They are great to work with; they are professional; they provide ideas and they deliver.” John McDonald, Director, Family Holiday Association

Listen to our work

Listen to Maria and her family describing their break in Skegness:

Listen to the audio diary recorded by Iris on a break with her son to Kench Hill in Kent:

Listen to seven year old Liam tell us what a beach holiday is really like:

See also

More case studies on our work with the Family Holiday Association

Sutton CVS asked us to deliver bespoke one-day social media training workshops for seven community groups and local charities in the London borough of Sutton. The training was part of the Take Part Pathfinder, an initiative designed to build the skills and confidence of local people to help them play a greater role in local decision making.

Approach

We designed each training workshop from scratch, focusing on the needs of the staff and volunteers and taking into account their existing knowledge. We concentrated on free online tools and basic social media applications including blogs, RSS feeds, online video, Twitter and Facebook.

Participants had lots of opportunities to gain hands-on experience of social media, including setting up blogs and putting together strategies for how they would use the tools in the future. After the training we provided follow-up meetings and telephone support as people took their first steps into social networking.

Outcome

Armed with new knowledge and confidence, many of the participants set up blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. New online profiles set up during or directly after the workshops include:

• Sutton Mencap
• SCILL
• Sutton YAP
• Merton & Sutton Mediation
• Eurasie
• Sutton Arts Council
• EcoLocal.

What Sutton CVS says

“On behalf of us all, I’d like to thank sounddelivery for the excellent course they have run for us. I think we all agree that it has been inspiring and has motivated us all to start using social media both for our own enjoyment and to ‘get our voice heard’.” John Bolton, SCILL

“Thank you for a very informative and enjoyable day. I feel much more aware of the different social media options and am starting to think about how we could use them to benefit our service and clients.” Nigel Eggleston, Service Manager, In-volve, Sutton Youth Awareness programme

Carers UK commissioned us to create a portfolio of photography, audio and video content case studies that would bring carers’ stories to life, highlight the realities of caring and illustrate the work of the charity. The multimedia content is an important feature of their new website.

Approach

In the first stage of the project we worked closely with the head of communications to identify carers to feature in the case studies. We spent time with the carers to prepare them for what the interviews and photography would involve.

Caring for a loved one can be an incredibly emotional experience, especially in the case of dementia where the person being cared for has problems communicating and is experiencing memory loss. Our experienced team made sure that the carers were treated sensitively throughout the preparation process and during the interviews.

Outcome

We produced two video case studies, two short audio case studies and six photography case studies for the charity, providing essential content for the new Carers UK website.

Our photography is used throughout the website to provide a fresh perspective on all areas of caring and the families and indiviuals who care for their loved ones.

Watch and listen to our work

Carers UK – Maryann’s Story by sounddelivery

Carers UK – Ian’s Story by sounddelivery

See also

Carers and caring is an issue that is close to sounddelivery’s heart. During the last few years we have provided funding to several small charities who work to provide support for carers, including The Kiloran Trust which provides respite for carers, and the Community Network’s telephone friendship groups for socially isolated carers. Find out more about our values

The National Portrait Gallery commissioned us to produce a series of audio features to promote its monthly Visualising Portraits picture descriptions sessions for blind and partially-sighted visitors.

The lectures are lively and interactive, provoking much discussion and conversation. Each session takes place in the gallery, seated in front of the painting whilst experienced artists and describers give a detailed verbal description of a particular work from the collection. Each month focuses on a different portrait, from the famous to the infamous!

Outcome

The audio features we produced covered a whole range of portraits and styles, from contemporary artists like Eduardo Paolozzi to legends of Romanticism like John Keats.

Listen to our work

Joseph Severn, who had nursed his friend in Rome, described the circumstances recreated in this posthumous portrait:

‘This was the time he first fell ill and had written the Ode to the Nightingale on the morning of my visit to Hampstead. I found him sitting with the two chairs as I have painted him & was struck with the first real symptoms of sadness in Keats so finely expressed in that poem.’

Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a major figure in the international art sphere working on his own interpretation and vision of the world. Paolozzi investigated how we can fit into the modern world to resemble our fragmented civilization through imagination and fantasy. One of his most well known sculptures is of Sir Isaac Newton which oversees the comings and goings in the courtyard at the British Library.

Renaissance East Midlands commissioned us to train museum staff in social media and digital storytelling, as part of their workforce development programme. Our training would help staff to develop multimedia projects for the organisation’s Museum Buddies (Mubu) programme, which aims to connect museums and audiences through digital media.

Approach

Each Mubu project includes a digital element such as filmmaking, audio, digital art or music, which is shared online. We wanted to make sure that museum staff had the skills and experience needed to develop a wide range of multimedia resources, so we created tailor-made training sessions on digital storytelling, audio podcasts and videos.

The workshops provided practical knowhow, built confidence and inspired creative thinking. We tailored each session to the needs of the regional museums and their specific pressures, such as limited resources and restricted internet access within local authorities.

Outcome

We delivered three practical training sessions over consecutive weeks and it was great to see the delegates’ confidence and abilities grow over this period.

What Renaissance East Midlands says

“It has been a real pleasure working with the sounddelivery team. The workshops for Mubu were consistently high quality, enjoyable and effective – and the training support materials were very useful. We loved the professional yet personable approach; you delivered informative learning sessions and made it great fun at the same time.” Bryony Robins, Mubu project manager and Renaissance regional officer for e-learning at Leicester City Council

When Mansfield Museum’s Museum Development Officer, Jodie Henshaw, discovered that one of the town’s major employer’s was relocating, she knew she had to act fast to preserve a piece of local heritage. The factory, known as the Metal Box, has been producing tins – from coffee to tobacco – for more than 150 years, with generations of local people passing through its gates.

Jodie secured funding from Renaissance East Midlands through the Museum Buddies programme and asked us to work with the museum and the local community to preserve an important part of local history.  

Approach

We put together a bespoke training package and project plan for the museum, with the aim of creating a digital time-capsule of memories from the factory.

sounddelivery’s senior producer, Mark, led a training workshop to teach Jodie and her colleagues about audio recording and editing. We then ran a ‘memory day’ where we invited staff, both past and present, to the museum to record their stories and memories. 

We set up a makeshift recording studio in one of the museum’s offices and carried out interviews throughout the day. It was thrilling to see different generations of local people arrive to talk about their memories of the factory. A reporter from the local paper, the Chad, also came and wrote an article about the day.

After making an initial assessment of the material collected at the memory day, we created an audio plan that outlined the topics and number of podcasts we could produce. The final categories included apprenticeships, health and safety, sports and social clubs, and working families.

Outcome

Every story was fascinating and the project proved to be a great success, preserving a part of Mansfield’s history that would otherwise have been lost. Alongside the audio we also created an audio slideshow to provide an overview of the project. The audio interviews and audio slideshow will form part of an exhibition on the history of the factory which will run in September and October 2011.

What Mansfield Museum says

“The staff at Mansfield Museum have been truly inspired by working with sounddelivery – the guidance and support offered by your team has motivated the museum to look at developing more digital projects, which will in turn improve access to Mansfield Museum and its collections.” Jodie Henshaw, Museum Development Officer, Mansfield Museum

Watch and listen to our work

As one of the biggest employers in Mansfield the Metal Box saw lots of local families working side-by-side. Sisters Rose and Jacqeline Smith sisters worked at the factory in the 1960s. They were often on the production line and found themselves doing the same jobs. Listen to their memories of the factory:

Watch the audio slideshow:

Crich Tramway Village in Derbyshire had been given funding from the Renaissance East Midlands Mubu project to create an audio trail with a group of young people. They asked us to help them plan and produce the trail, working alongside creative writer Linda Kempton.

Approach

We worked with the Crich Tramway Village team to develop a plan to create the audio trail during the October half-term week. On the Friday before the half-term we met the group of 16-18 year olds and toured the museum to select the objects that would feature in the audio trail. Education manager Jan Barrett and curator Glynn Wilton provided historical information on each object and helped to transport the group back in time to understand the roles that the objects played in everyday life.

On the Monday of half-term Linda facilitated scriptwriting workshops, developing scenarios, stories and characters. We continued this work on the Tuesday, before starting to record the stories and short audio-dramas on the Wednesday. The teenagers acted in various roles, drafted in volunteers to help with the male voices, and collected and sourced music and sound effects.

We then trained the young people in audio editing, using Audacity.

Outcome

With their new editing skills the young people were able to create the audio tour, editing out their mistakes and adding tram sound effects as needed. We recommended that the museum host the audio on Soundcloud.com, to enable easy hosting and sharing.

Listen to our work

You can listen to the audio trail and download the tracks from the Crich Tramway Village website.

Or listen to Emily and Glynn as they act out a short drama about the A+B push button telephone:

A&B Phone Box by Crich Tramway Village

See also

Check out some of the pictures from the week:

How do you train an international team of officers, all of whom have different approaches to filming stories? This was the challenge set for us by animal welfare charity The Brooke.

Approach

We delivered two bespoke Video for the Web workshops for staff from Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, the UK and Pakistan. Tailoring the workshops specifically to the charity’s needs, we put together a creative day that allowed the groups to explore how different media could be used to tell their stories.

During the day participants gained hands-on filming experience using small cameras, explored interviewing and filming techniques and learng how to edit film with Adobe Premiere Elements.

Outcome

Working with the international team was fascinating. Everyone had their own ideas about how to structure their films in order to tell the stories from their country in the most entertaining and informative way. We helped participants to come up with content ideas to help illustrate the ways their work is making an impact. We also led a discussion about different formats and approaches that they could adopt to create a house style.

What The Brooke says

“This was one of the best courses I have been on in terms of trainers, relevance to the organisation brief and programme outline. A great refresher/intro to filming and especially editing content.” Ailsa Herd, Head of PR, The Brooke