Charity applications open: Women’s Voices 2023 – International Women’s Day

Pro bono comms advice from the UK’s most creative volunteers

For the seventh year running, we will be celebrating International Women’s Day by bringing together 30 charities that support, campaign and advocate for women and girls, with 150 media and creative volunteers to work with you to raise your profile, build your brand, develop a creative campaign or reach a new target audience. You will get to spend a day with your own dedicated team of volunteers from the UK’s leading media and creative organisations such as Ascential, BBC, Bloomberg, Channel 4, Dentsu Aegis, Edelman, MediaCom, Ogilvy, Meta, and The Telegraph.

How it works

Each of the selected charities will be matched with a team of media and creative volunteers who have the expertise and skillset to work on your specific communications challenge. We are looking for charities with a clear and live comms challenge you want to address in 2023, this could be building your brand, reaching new audiences, a campaign, raising awareness of a specific issue affecting women/girls, advocacy, or a news story you want to get coverage for. You will work collectively with your team of volunteers to creatively brainstorm ideas before designing a communications action plan for your charity to take forward.

Who should apply?

To be eligible to apply for Women’s Voices your organisation must meet the following criteria:

• Support, campaigns or advocates for women and girls;
• UK Registered Charity or Community Interest Company (CIC)
• Support women and girls from more than one of the nine protected characteristics detailed in the Equality Act (2010).
• Two members of staff must be available to attend the event on Wednesday 8 March 2023 from 10:00 – 16:00. This should be one person who deals with the charity communications and one who is a senior leader/decision-maker;
• Be willing to take part in one case study post event.

Women’s Voices will prioritise organisations that are working to support economically vulnerable women most impacted by poverty and inequality in the face of the cost of living crisis. Priority will be also given to user led organisations that are run by, and for, women of colour, LGBTQIA+ and/or disabled women.

To apply, complete the application form below. The deadline for applications is Monday 30 January at 12:00.

With only 30 places available, we are looking for strong applications that clearly outline a specific communication challenge that you would like help to solve, along with how this support will impact your charity and the women and girls that you work with.

To find out more information, please contact Niamh Mawhinney on [email protected].

Meet our speaker – Sophie Neary, Group Director for META UK & Ireland

Sophie joined META from Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), where she was a member of the executive committee for Boots. Sophie has over 28 years executive leadership experience spanning Marketing, E-Commerce, Strategy and Digital Transformation. A feminist since 1971, Sophie is a passionate champion of women’s health in the workplace and has recently launched a series aiming to break down taboos and stereotypes called Courage Is Contagious. As a woman who is single and childfree from choice – Sophie regularly speaks about embracing a life outside of the traditional expectations of society and helping to build a future where everyone has the greatest freedom of all – the choice to lead a life of their own choosing.

Our commitment to equalities and inclusion

Women’s Voices is a space for all women, including and in particular women from marginalised communities such as lesbian and bisexual women, trans women, disabled women and women of colour.

At Media Trust, we proudly work to ensure our programme and event environments feel safe, supportive and inclusive for all of those taking part. And we ask that partners and participants help us to do the same.

Please note, we will not be able to cover cost of travel to the venue.