Communications consultancy offers free support to charities to tackle communications challenges

Perceptive Communicators, the multi-award-winning Glasgow-based communications and PR agency, is launching their charity support campaign, Improving Lives today to help charities to raise awareness of their vital work.  Launched on International Day of Charity, the Improving Lives campaign will give Scottish charities the opportunity to access ten days of free expert support from the Perceptive team to overcome various communications challenges in the next 12 months. 

The agency has been active in helping charities for 16 years with pro-bono communications support and is now seeking applications from interested charities.

Julie Moulsdale, Perceptive Communicators Managing Director, said,  “We have had the privilege of helping several charities over the last 16 years. At Perceptive, our purpose is to help transform futures and improve lives.  Charities have been hit particularly hard over the past few years and that is why it is even more important that we continue our pro bono program of support. 

“Communication plays a vital role in the success of charities. By harnessing our expert communication skills, we hope to supercharge the efforts of the selected charity.” 

Previous charities that have benefited from Perceptive’s help include Action Aid, Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice, Business Beats Cancer and most recently The Simon Community, Action for Children and Simpsons Special Care Babies Edinburgh.  

David Springford, Trustee at Simpsons Special Care Babies, said: “Perceptive Communicators supported us from 2020, especially through Covid. This covered social media and press releases which resulted in increased exposure for the charity. 

“As a result, we’ve had increased fundraising for several of our campaigns, an example being our ‘Teddy Bears Picnic’ in 2021 which raised over £11,000. We were also pleased to have additional coverage for ‘World Prematurity Day’ with Perceptive Communicators’ clients lighting their buildings purple in support.

“On behalf of the charity, we’d like to thank the Perceptive Communicators team for all their hard work in making a difference to help support the smallest and sickest babies.”

Action for Children’s Corporate and Major Donor Fundraising Manager, Grant McFarlane, said: “Perceptive Communicators support for Action for Children has been hugely worthwhile and appreciated and we’ve been extremely grateful to be the agency’s nominated charity partner alongside the Simon Community.

“Over the months working with the team we’ve appreciated several great opportunities and networking events thanks to Perceptive. We’ve benefited greatly from Perceptive’s social media expertise to help Action for Children Scotland improve how we communicate with our supporters and the broader community through the various channels available." 

Lorraine McGrath, Chief Executive of The Simon Community said: “We were delighted to have had the support of the Perceptive team in shaping and communicating what we do. As a team they brought a level of talent and ability far beyond what we could bring, but more than that they are a team who obviously shares our values and desire to make a positive difference to people’s lives. From the outset the team enabled us to increase our reach and impact resulting in not just more donations and partnerships but the right kind. They were hands-on in supporting us to meet the challenges of people who have very complex needs and often low expectations.”

The Perceptive Communicators Improving Lives Support program offers up to ten days of communications support to the selected charity partner over the year.  This allocated time can be used flexibly to meet the charity’s communications priorities and includes a range of communications support on offer such as communications strategy development, competitor analysis,  media training, campaign planning, building a case for support and proposition development, social media training, PR, communications audit and copywriting. 

To apply for the Perceptive Communicators Improving Lives program, charities should apply online at www.perceptivecommunicators.co.uk/improvinglives no later than Friday 23 September 2022.