Media Trust nominated for award for work with London youth charities

Through the year-long programme we have upskilled twenty grassroots, London youth charities in marketing and communications.

Many of the charities Media Trust have been supporting work with some of the hardest to reach and disadvantaged of London’s 3 million children and young people, providing vital frontline services in some of the most deprived areas of London, with limited resources.

The programme aims to help these organisations reach more funders, supporters but most importantly young Londoner’s. Here is the impact Media Trust’s programme has had on three of the charities we supported:

Harrow Club

Harrow Club are dedicated to improving the lives of young people in North West London, with a focus on reaching socially excluded and disadvantaged young people. The charity required support with building a communications strategy as well as developing a new website.

Media Trust provided them with training, expert-led consultancy as well as probono digital marketing support from global media agency, Wavemaker. Harrow Club Chief Executive, Michael Defoe said: “A big take-away for us is to ensure we raise the voice of our community by communicating the work that we do.”

A year on, the charity’s new website is up and running, offering up to date co-created content from their young people. They also won a bid with the Young Londoners Fund to run a late-night outreach programme for young people.

Making the Leap 

Making the Leap aims to improve the social mobility of 11-25 year olds. Media Trust worked with the charity to achieve a clear communications strategy, a sponsorship proposition and improved internal communications.

Luke Vincett, the charity’s Communications and Media Manager said: “Media Trust’s support helped me to step back from my work and see a bigger picture of how communications tied into our overall strategy”. Luke also benefited from training in social media and campaign planning: “beyond providing specific technical advice to optimise output, the training gave me reference points by which to measure success and helped me develop more cohesive, structured marketing campaigns,” said Luke.

By the end of the programme, Making the Leap had a clear communications plan.

RISE Collective

For RISE Collective, who work with marginalised young Londoners to help them combat disenfranchisement, the outcome of the support has been impressive. They now have a communications and business strategy in place and have recently launched a creative campaign to raise the voices of young people called ‘Amplify and Acknowledge’.

Co-Founder Mahala Axon said: “Through our work with Media Trust we were able to reflect on and strengthen how we communicate who we are and what we do.” She continued: “It was also great having someone outside of RISE giving us a fresh, objective and encouraging perspective.”

RISE now have a ‘youth champion’ on board who is in charge of all new content across their social channels. You can check out their Instagram profile here.

We are currently launching year two of our Communications Capacity Building programme with John Lyon’s Charity, helping a further 20 grassroots youth organisations across London. You can find out more about Media Trust’s work in this area here.