What a fantastic day it's been, and what a great way to end my two month placement! Today the Trust held a pyjama party, encouraging staff and families visiting us to don their nightwear to help raise awareness of the new 'Overnight' campaign. We had a free raffle with night-themed prizes, the children had decorated stars for the event throughout the week and, it's fair to say, for something which is so simple, a great time was had by all.

We've documented the whole thing on Facebook (of course!) and you can see more pics here if you want to - feel free to 'like'  few of them :)

The Trust and its families very kindly clubbed together to get me a framed photo of some of the kids at the Easter fun day we held a couple of weeks back, which will now take pride of place at home. They also gave me an engraved pen with a thank you message, which was totally unexpected. I'm not going to forget them in a hurry, but now I'll think of the Trust every time I pick up that pen. It's a lovely thought.

I know find myself in the weird position of not feeling sad about the end of the placement. This week has been amazing. Four consecutive days of interviews played out on local BBC radio all about the James Hopkins Trust, more newspaper coverage, great responses to social media activity have come at just the right time to give the team here the incentive and momentum to keep it going.

We've made arrangements for regular update calls between myself and the Trust team so that I can continue to advise them on communications activities and it very much feels like this is the start of a really great time for them, especially as the families have come up with an amazing event idea - but more on that another time...

So, as it stands, this is nothing like a goodbye to my new friends and I am looking forward to seeing them again soon! If you are looking for a cause to support, I can wholeheartedly say this charity is amazing and anything you did for them would hugely appreciated.

Dan.

Egor has been sitting in a corner of the recpetion at James Hopkins Trust for a long time, nameless and unnoticed by visitors, staff, most importantly, the children. The reception itself had become a little cluttered and started to feel a little functional rather than welcoming.

Liz from the nursing team decided it needed a sprucing up and I decided to help her. We moved some of the clutter out of the way, creating more space and allowing us to re-locate some of the many cuddly toys that were sitting out of view in the room.

Egor is now sitting on his own chair immediately next to the entrance and within an hour of his re-location four different groups of visitors had been into or out of the building and every single one of them commented on him. He got cuddles, strokes - the works. I'm sure a smile even started to appear on his face.

Why am I blogging about a big, furry orange monster? It's to illustrate the point I've been making to the team at the Trust that there are lots of little, seemingly insignificant things that happen here every day that will interest the outside world. More importantly, these 'little things' help to convey the culture of an organisation, especially if they're worked into social media activity.

When we moved Egor into his new prominent position, he didn't have a name. How did we get one? We asked people to suggest one on Facebook and Twitter and we got a great response. We even got people cheating, liking their own suggestions so they appeared to be more popular than they actually were. It was great fun but more importantly, it reminded people that we work with children in a fun way.

There are big orange monster stories all over the place at the Trust and it's great fun bringing them to life!

For the last two months, I’ve had the privilege of working at the James Hopkins Trust in Barnwood, a charity doing fantastic work to support families with severely disabled, life-limited and life-threatened children under six years of age and it has big plans for the future. Before I get onto that, I should explain how I came to be at the Trust.

My day job is in public relations and, having worked with businesses for over 10 years, I’ve long felt the desire to put that experience to use for a good cause.

Back in November, I applied to take part in the Vodafone World of Difference programme, an initiative which gives people a chance to spend a couple of months working for a charity of their choice with their salary costs covered by Vodafone. In short, it means successful applicants can apply their skills to a project to benefit registered charities that mean something to them, and it costs the charity nothing.

I applied to work with the James Hopkins Trust because my best friend’s eldest son, Chris, has benefited from its respite care services in the past and I know how much the whole family values that support. This seemed like a unique chance to say thank you to the Trust and I was delighted to find out that I’d won a place in January.

From day one, things went well. Co-founder Vance Hopkins, assistant manager Jo Page and I sat down to discuss the Trust, its history and ambitions for the future. Two of the major challenges that the Trust needs to address is raising awareness of its work – both in Gloucester and around the county – and to raise half a million Pounds to extend the level of overnight care it is able to offer to Gloucestershire families through its new ‘Overnight’ campaign. And to do all of this with just Vance and Jo (part-time) running the charity!

The ideas started flowing thick and fast, and we quickly agreed on what needed to be done in the short term to get things moving. As well as actively looking for publicity opportunities, we’ve completely overhauled the Trust’s social media activity – Facebook and Twitter – and the response has been fantastic from the public, from naming our ‘Overnight’ campaign mascot (Jimmy Jams as the vote currently stands) to Easter egg donations for our family fun day and much more.

Reflecting that the Trust is a place which provides the children it supports with the best possible quality of life is going to be a really important part of its communications in the future. This is not a place that kids come to be pitied. It’s somewhere they are entertained, cared for and stimulated and a quick look at the Trust’s Facebook page will show you what it is all about.

That said, clearly the Trust exists because of the serious health issues that affect children and their families and it has a responsibility to help the public to better understand the work that it does and why.

Demonstrating this to people who don’t have a direct involvement with children who have the kind of conditions that the Trust supports is tough, but really important.

As a parent of two young children, I’m aware of how testing it can be to miss out on a decent night’s sleep because of teething or a cold. But imagine that broken sleep each night and following day, often as a result of your needing to administer procedures to keep your child alive, for months or even years at a time. Imagine the impact that could have on your relationships with other people – your partner, your child’s siblings – and your general wellbeing, and I imagine you’re just starting to scratch the surface.

The work that the James Hopkins Trust does to give families a short break from these pressures is invaluable. The fact that it is a Gloucester-based charity dedicated entirely to serving families in Gloucestershire is something the county and city should be incredibly proud of.

Its next phase of development - to build and operate significantly more overnight care facilities at Kite’s Corner, Barnwood – is indicative both of the demand for its services from Gloucestershire families and of the Trust’s ambition to support them.

With its communications activities now starting to take shape, my hope is that awareness of the Trust will grow across the county and more people will be compelled to donate or fundraise around the ‘Overnight’ theme to help make these vital services a reality.

At a cost of half a million Pounds (to build and resource services for its first two years), the fundraising challenge is huge and it can only be achieved with the support of the community. Every penny received by the Trust makes a difference to Gloucestershire families, so please get involved to make the ‘Overnight’ campaign a success we can all be proud of!

When you explain to other people what you're doing on your World of Difference placement and how it's been made possible, they are genuinely and pleasantly surprised. The typical reaction I've had is along the lines of, "Oh wow - that's fantastic! How do I get involved?".

As it's now nearing the end of my fourth week with the James Hopkins Trust I thought it's high time I paused to take stock of what this unique opportunity has enabled me to do so far.

In terms of my understanding of the charity itself, I now feel like I have a clear view of how it operates and where the opportunities lie for the Trust in the future. I thought I had this nailed early on in the placement, but it's taken many conversations with the people linked to the Trust to fully appreciate it.

The good news is that the overall plan I wrote in the first couple of days absolutely stacks up. What's been added to the equation is some of the tactical detail and evidence that my recommendations are already starting to work. With this has come an increased confidence on my part about how things can evolve to bring the long term benefit I set out to deliver at the start. In short, things are moving along nicely.

I don't think I would have been afforded the time to have these vital conversations if it wasn't through a programme like the World of Difference. For example, I know that if I was doing this in a voluntary or pro-bono capacity, I would still need to balance the time I invested in it with the need to have money coming in to support my family through my day job and that would clearly limit the focus I could give the Trust.

As it is, I've got the luxury of being able spend all of my time focussed on the Trust and it's not costing them anything. Not only is this enabling them to benefit from my impartial advice on communication matters, it feels liberating on a personal level. And this means I can focus on the little things that can be done now to influence the overall perception of the Trust in the long run, like shifting big furry orange monsters around...

[See my next post :)]

In addition to the Facebook tips I shared in my previous post, I've written up the equivalent beginner's guide to Twitter.

It's actually proved harder to get this one down in succinct terms than the Facebook one but, even though Twitter is less complicated in theory, there are lots of subtleties and arguably a time commitment required to get it to fly for your charity!

Outside of the tips I put into the document, one thing I see a lot of charity supporters doing is  blanket Tweeting every celebrity or Twitter influencer they can find to rally support for their cause. It's rare that this approach pays off in terms of RTs and endorsements and it's not an efficient means of getting your message out there.

You build a following on Twitter by being consistent and relevant over time, so do think about this if you're just getting started!

Twitter, as with any other social network, is a far more rewarding platform if you use it to actively engage with people. Find Twitter users with whom you have a common interest and try to enter into a dialogue with them. Take some time to think about what you have to say that could be interesting to others and find your own style of delivering it.

That said, I hope these tips I've written for the James Hopkins Trust are useful for Twitter newbies - do let me know if you have questions in the comments below!

Cheers,

Dan.

I'm working with the The James Hopkins Trust to transfer my PR and social media knowledge and experience to its team so that they can operate and efficient and sustainable PR strategy.

Part of the work I'm doing is helping supporters of the Trust to better understand social media and the easy things they can do to help raise awareness of the cause. With that in mind, I've pulled together some Top Tips for Facebook, targeted at charity supporters, which can be downloaded from the Trust site that I wanted to share in case it's useful for other people in a similar position.

Feel free to adapt it to meet your own charity's requirements, all I would ask is that you credit the source of the tips as the James Hopkins Trust and include a link to http://www.jameshopkinstrust.org.uk.

Profile or Page?

As an aside, I've noticed a number of charities are using Facebook profiles (designed for individuals) rather than pages (designed for organisations). The way to tell which your charity is using is by whether you are asked to "like" or send a friend request. The latter is a profile, the former a page.

Pages are more open, allow people to opt into your updates rather than requesting permission from you (less admin for you!), and also enable you to designate multiple administrators so you don't have to share your log in details with others. As a further benefit, you can also get free access to insights for the Page, enabling you to view page likes, comments, etc. over time to gauge the impact of the work you're doing.

If you have been asked to look at Facebook as part of your placement and the presence , you would do well to migrate them to a Page. While you can't automatically port friends, it's easy enough to start telling people that your charity's existing Facebook presence is changing and to begin the migration process.

Groups

Groups are great ways to share information with a specific bunch of people. The James Hopkins Trust has its own Facebook Page, the founder of the charity now has his own profile (which was the official presence before the page was created last week) and the Families using the Trust have created their own Group to discuss relevant events and exchange experiences amongst themselves.

Groups can be open (as in anyone can join) or closed (by invitation only), depending on how you want to run them. Unlike pages or profiles, Group activity is only visible to other members of that Group. This means you reach a limited audience with Group activity which is great if you want to contain the info, but bad if you want to increase the spread of it.

This is by no means intended to be a exhaustive guide to Facebook but, based on my experience over the past couple of weeks, it may be helpful for some people and the charities they are working with.

Dan.

My first week at the Trust has been fantastic, and I'm well ahead of where I expected to be at this stage. The PR campaign strategy has been agreed, a new Facebook presence has been set up (search for the James Hopkins Trust if you're interested) and my thoughts are now turning to the detail of the media relations activity, getting Twitter on track and the longer term activity that we can start on.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been very pleasantly surprised by the trust and willingness to buy into the ideas that we have been discussing this week. I picked up my swipe card a couple of days back and I'm now wearing it proudly around my neck as a fully fledged member of the team (see below).

The commute to and from Newbury is working out OK too. It's 120 miles a day, but that gives me some great thinking time and it's proved really constructive so far.

Thinking and talking through the initial plan I'd laid out in the application has actually caused us all to re-evaluate what we want to achieve and, as a result of that, the fundraising target for the extension work has actually doubled to £500,000 so that it can also include the amount it will cost to run the services for two years once the building work has been completed. These are big targets and the comms activity for the Trust will be really important.

Outside of the core project, we're now also thinking about helping to address one of the Trust's other aims - to recruit more younger volunteers and supporters into its fold. Just this morning we've had a chat about how we can start to build up a strategy to get the ball rolling and we've had some really energising discussions that will form the basis of a brainstorm early next week.

The willingness of Vance and Jo to explore new approaches to doing things as an organisation that can have a positive impact on the comms that we put out is a major boost, and so important when the budget for comms in its own right is understandably restricted.

I'm feeling very positive about the opportunities the Trust has. :)

This pic was taken on Monday at the World of Difference induction day, an event at which I have been dishing out PR, blogging and social media advice for the last three years.

Being there on the receiving end was slightly weird, but the speakers on stage in the afternoon more than made the day for me. There were some great stories being told to motivate the already excited crowd and I left in no doubt as to how much this opportunity means to charities and winners alike.

So, fast forwarding 24 hours and I am sitting back home having just completed my first day proper with the James Hopkins Trust in the company of Vance and Jo. The one thing that struck me is that they demonstrated an immediate trust in me to do the right thing for them, both in terms of what I recommend for the PR strategy and the way in which I deliver it.

This genuinely took me by surprise. I expected it would take some time to gain their confidence, especially as we hadn't met in person to discuss the project beforehand. Yet they spent the entire morning with me, explaining how the Trust works and what they needed to achieve.

Vance and Jo were so well defined in terms of where they want their promotional efforts to take them, and so receptive to my initial recommendations, that I've already made significant progress in terms of developing the overall strategy. I thought that would take longer too!

In all seriousness, today was incredibly constructive and gives us a really solid foundation for the next couple of months. I'm delighted with how day one has gone and the 120 mile round trip wasn't too bad either :)

Asking the question a couple of weeks back has resulted in some interesting suggestions, helpful conversations and a number of offers of help - all of which I am very grateful for, so thank you to everyone who got involved.

I especially wanted to thanks Jon from @WhipCar for picking up on my post and trying to accommodate me - the company has a great concept behind it and I'd be actively perusing it if this other option hadn't materialised.

It was a big ask and I cast the net wide but the source of my wheels has turned out to be closer to home than I would have imagined - my mother-in-law in fact!

Since her work re-located she's taken to commuting by train. There have been other demands on that car in the recent past, so it was not a given I could get my hands on it. However, it's coming my way at the end of the month and it means a massive amount. Thanks Ken and Carol!

I'm going to clock up 5,500 miles in it over the two months, so that little Fiesta has a lot riding on it. I'm covering the cost of fuel out of my own pocket, which I always intended to do, although now Ford has launched a campaign to shout about it's fuel economy credentials, maybe it's worth a shot at getting the fuel sponsored instead of the car - anyone got a spare fuel card? :)