sounddelivery

Greetings!

December 2011 marks an important milestone for me personally and professionally. Five years ago I became a Fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs and sounddelivery was officially born. Celebrating our fifth birthday has given me a good opportunity to reflect on our achievements to date and what we hope to achieve in the future.
My vision for sounddelivery was – and still is – to enable not-for-profit organisations to tell their stories with greater impact and to give a voice to people and issues rarely heard.

But while the opportunities for captivating storytelling have never been better, making the most of stories is still a challenge for many organisations. My hope for 2012 is that managers and leaders across the not-for-profit sector recognise the importance of demonstrating impact through effective storytelling.

Embracing digital and social media has a big role to play in this, but I also want to help people understand the basics of good storytelling, including how to uncover stories and how to support their beneficiaries to tell their stories in their own words.

Celebrating more milestones

2011 was also a big birthday year for me…40! I’d set myself some challenges to achieve before reaching the milestone birthday, including running the marathon, a ride in a hot air balloon and watching Star Wars – and I was also featured in the May issue of Good Housekeeping.

I also achieved an important personal goal this year by developing a pilot project bringing a group of carers on a respite break to London. Excitingly this was the first project developed by our new not-for-profit arm, soundinnovation. Read more about soundinnovation and Give Us a Break.

Supporting the charity sector

We’ve worked with organisations of all shapes and sizes over the past five years, from small community groups and social enterprises to local authorities and national bodies. Challenging economic conditions are affecting services and budgets across the sector, but I believe that now, more than ever, it’s essential to use storytelling to create content that enables your organisation to stand out and be heard.

Our passion for storytelling is at the heart of everythingsounddelivery does, from training and production, to strategic consultancy and campaign management. Combined with our in-depth understanding of the sectors we work in, this is what sets us apart from other companies.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been a part of the sounddelivery journey so far. On behalf of everyone here at sounddelivery we hope you enjoy the festive season. Have a happy New Year and we look forward to working with you again in 2012.

Do keep following our updates on Twitter and Facebook.

sounddelivery 2011 from sounddelivery on Vimeo.

Click to enjoy our slideshow above and read about our highlights below.

Best wishes,

“I honestly thought today’s was one of the most useful & engaging sessions I’ve been to”

Natalie, UK Sport, sounddelivery/Guardian Volutary Network Multimedia Masterclass

Training continues to be a huge part of what we do and this year we’ve been privileged to work with a host of amazing organisations including RNIB, The Brooke, Big Lottery Fund, UK Sport, Leukaemia Lymphoma Research, PACE and the Mental Health Foundation.

Our hands-on training workshops provide practical experience of digital and social media tools and techniques, building skills and confidence so that in-house teams can create messages and content that stands out.

We’re always looking for new opportunities to create training programmes that meet the needs of our clients.

This year we’ve added two new social media courses to our wide-ranging digital portfolio – Developing a Digital and Social Media Strategy and Building Your Organisation’s Presence – which are ideal for people and organisations that have mastered the basics and are looking to take their social media activity to the next level.

Bringing stories to life

Of course whether you’re tweeting, filming or just talking, the key to all effective communications is great storytelling.

For the second year running the international animal welfare charity The Brooke brought their team of communications officers to us for a creative video production day.

Our relationship with the Big Lottery Fund has continued to grow this year and we have trained many of their regional teams in podcasting and video production. We’re really proud of the results – do listen to this podcast produced for Remembrance Sunday:

Big Lottery Fund – Heroes Return by BigLotteryFund

We’ve delivered an increasing number of projects involving young people this year. One of the most exciting projects we worked on was providing training to teenagers as part of The Reading Agency’s MyVoice creative reading and writing programme.

We also worked on an intergenerational project in the Bowes Park area of north London, bringing local people together to create a snapshot of what it’s like to live in the area.

My Bowes Park from sounddelivery on Vimeo.

We trained students from ACS Cobham International School to use social media to publicise the charitable work they do, and delivered social media and reporting skills at a residential week for the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services. We have loved seeing young people grow in confidence when they have taken part in these digital projects.

We’re always delighted when trainees send us the work they’ve produced following our courses. Take a look at the audio slideshow produced by the Motivation Charitable Trust.

“sounddelivery have helped turn our passion for carers into tangible products that have made a real impact with the public. We are using the video, audio and photos again and again – real people with real lives – and each time the impact is high.”

Matt Hill, Communications Manager, Carers UK

Charities ask us to produce multimedia content for a variety of purposes – publicising their work, fundraising, to enhance specific campaigns and to inform donors and supporters of particular projects.

Telling powerful stories

To support the redevelopment of their website, Carers UK commissioned us to create two videos, two audio stories and photographic case studies. Our multimedia content has been used throughout the site to provide a fresh perspective on all areas of caring.

John, James and Jean’s Story from sounddelivery on Vimeo.

Carers UK – Ian’s Story by sounddelivery

Long-term partnerships

We’ve continued to work with the Family Holiday Association, which provides access to holidays for disadvantaged families. For the past two years they’ve been receiving donations from passengers on Thomson Airways flights. We produced this short film to reveal what happens to all that money.

Family Holiday Association and Thomson Airways from sounddelivery on Vimeo.

We also have a longstanding relationship with Leicester Hospitals Charity and over the last few years have produced material to support their fundraising campaigns. This year we worked alongside their in-house video team to produce a short video to promote the Our Space Appeal, an ambitious project to create a world-class Children and Young People’s Cancer Unit at Leicester Royal Infirmary. We were delighted to learn that BBC East Midlands Today used some of the footage.

Our Space Appeal from sounddelivery on Vimeo.

The campaigns we’ve worked on this year reinforce what we always say to clients – if you want to get media interest you need good case studies.

To support the Challenge Network’s drive to sign up young people for the National Citizen Servicescheme in the Midlands and in the North West, we worked to recruit active case studies and ambassadors who could speak on behalf of the project. Our passion and persistence secured coverage in a number of newspapers, online publications and broadcast media – including this spot on BBC Radio Lancashire.

Our training as BBC reporters comes to the fore when we’re commissioned to provide live event coverage. This year we reported from events including the London Advice Conference, Lasa’s Powering up the Third Sector and the Charity Comms Digital Communications conference.

At the Lasa conference we recorded, edited and uploaded interviews during the day and then tweeted audio links so that people following the conference on Twitter could engage with the debate almost immediately. After the event we compiled audio reports of highlights of the day, to create a permanent record of the conference proceedings.

“Lasa has worked with sounddelivery at two of our conferences this year and we’ve been delighted with the results. 

“They’ve been flexible in their approach, creative in what they’ve offered us, and shown us new and innovative ways to reflect the themes and issues that conference delegates have raised.”

Paul Treloar, Head of Policy and Communications, LASA

“The soundtalks events have been a great addition to my professional development this year. Practical advice that has seen real results for The Blue Cross.” 

To support our training and production work we run a programme of regular free talks and events focusing on exciting use of digital media. Feedback has been really positive this year, with attendees saying our free events are excellent for meeting new people, sharing knowledge and finding inspiration.

Organised in partnership with the Third Sector PR and Communications Network Facebook group, under the umbrella #soundtalks, events this year have included:

• Digital Storytelling with Lasa
• The Media Needs You! with Clare Horton, online editor for Society Guardian
• Social Media Campaigning with Simon Berry, founder of ColaLife
• The Power of Social Media with Kirsty Stephenson, who volunteers as a digital strategist with Child’s i Foundation.

One of our standout events of the year was our #soundtalk with Brian Woods and Jezza Neumann of True Vision Productions, who spoke about how documentaries can create social change.

Brian and Jezza have made a number of multi-award winning documentaries and their challenging film, Poor Kids, received a strong audience response when it was broadcast on BBC1.

They gave us their top tips on the best ways to work with production companies and how to find case studies that’ll make the most compelling stories. Listen to the audioboo and visit the storify page to find out more.

We have lots more exciting events planned for 2012. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for our latest news.

Living our values is incredibly important to us – we want to create social change and make a positive impact in tackling digital and social exclusion, reducing social isolation and giving a voice to marginalised groups.

Through our new not-for-profit arm,soundinnovation, we ran a pilot project, Give us a Break, supporting carers in Hampshire. Along with the charity Carers Together, we arranged for 22 carers to have a break from their caring responsibilities and come to London for a few days.

It was an incredibly rewarding experience to see what a difference this short break made to each of the carers. You can hear about the trip and watch more films here. Give Us a Break was featured on BBC South, BBC Radio Solent and in other local media.

We also donate our time and this year we’ve provided social media training for small and medium-sized businesses at the British Library and have spoken at various events.

I would also like to thank our own team. sounddelivery is a small organisation which relies on word of mouth recommendations from our clients. We simply wouldn’t be where we are today without our fantastic team of dedicated trainers, production teams, associates and interns who ensure that we provide the very best service. So a huge thank you to Mark, Eric, Graeme, Joanne, Mark, Jo, Tanya, Martin, Kate, Andrea, Priya and Richelle.