A draft strategy for “changing the way that the media cover charities” is calling for more informed charity spokespeople and the creation of a “relationship management team” to promote charities in the media.
The strategy, produced by a steering group including nfpSynergy’s driver of ideas, Joe Saxton (pictured), and director of CharityComms, Vicky Browning, as well as a panel of sector figures, forms the third of four strands of the Understanding Charities group's work. The paper aims to create a strategy for the next three years on how to improve public understanding of the charity sector.
In the draft strategy it states that the overall objective of the “improving media coverage” strand aims to secure a "type of media coverage that helps the public and particularly donors and volunteers better understand charities, and to empathise with the style and work of charities in the 21st Century”.
The recommendations include interviewing key journalists to try to understand why the sector gets low levels of generic coverage, including asking journalists and heads of media who have moved into the sector for their views.
It has also suggested focusing on the BBC as the public service broadcast, the strategy says that as one of the most influential broadcasters in the UK, “if we can’t persuade/cajole/reason/campaign/mither them to change their editorial approach, the prospect of changing other media outlets to change seems remote.” It recommends an overview report highlighting how the BBC covers the work of charities with recommendations for change, to be completed by the end of 2016.
A further recommendation is the creation of a “relationship management” team that builds on relationships between charities and the media. It says this team would act as a signpost to the people and stories that “make the charity and not-for-profit sector so vibrant”.
One suggestion called for a “Charities UK” function, so that the media and charities would know who does the match-making. This would be complementary to work already carried out by the CharityComms ASKcharity service and any other existing services. A team or organisation would ensure the “best charity stories reach the most engaged media outlets and vice versa”.
Other recommendations include the push for an increased number of charity experts and correspondents, and charity outlets, in the media, and an increase charity presence outside of mainstream media, particularly using the internet and social media.
Arts sector a benchmark
The group said it is looking at the arts sector as a benchmark of what it hopes to achieve for the charity sector in terms of media coverage, although stating that the “hurdle is simply not as high for arts sector coverage”. It is hoping to start a debate on whether the arts sector is a fair comparison for what it hopes to achieve.
The Understanding Charities Group is a cross-sector consortium which aims to improve the understanding of the public, donors and other stakeholders of how charities work; to improve public’s trust, empathy and agreement with charities; to increase positive media coverage of the charity sector as a whole and better tackle the negative; and to achieve this by combining collaborative action by the sector with the activities of individual charities.
The group agreed on four broad strands of work that needed addressing. These were: creating a narrative for the sector as a whole, engaging with charities, getting more generic media coverage for charities and creating a media rebuttal protocol, and researching and understanding the public and measuring success.
Anyone who wishes to respond to the strategy must do so by 29 May.
