Creative design support to work around the challenges of Covid-19
The impact of Covid-19 on charities has presented many challenges. From digital capabilities, internal resources, specialist skills, skeleton teams, through to how best to continue reach, support and generating income from fundraising. It has also created opportunities to create innovative solutions, to work in a more agile approach, and bridge gaps with direct, personal design support.
The help of charities has never been more needed, and many charities, like the YMCA, have seen an increase in demand and need for their services. A large number of fundraising events from this year have had to be cancelled, postponed or reinvented for digital world, including the YMCA’s Sleep Easy event which local schools readily rally together to support.
This event has been part of YMCA’s fundraising plan since 2010 and ‘has seen more than 7000 people sleep rough to raise more than £1.5m for local YMCA services that help young people rebuild their lives’. The concept is to sleep somewhere other than your bed and see’s many taking to their gardens, school grounds or stadiums in cardboard boxes, trying to keep warm and adding touches of comfort to help them see the night through.
Inspiring young people
Involvement with schools is a vital outreach for the YMCA. 1 in 5 homeless people in the UK are aged 16-24. Through working together with the schools they raise awareness of the support and ‘extended YMCA family’ available to young people. The sponsored fundraising events support the charity to tackle the root cause of homelessness as well as providing a place of safety, training, counselling and support both mentally and physically.
One of the local school events was due to originally take place in Spring this year, however due to Covid-19 this has now been postponed until next year. Instead the YMCA Bournemouth were invited to speak at an online lecture for the students in October, to share the story of the YMCA and their vital work locally.
This required the creation of branded slide decks for a powerpoint presentation to showcase:
- YMCA’s values and mission through design and layout
- recent statistics through the creation of infographics
- the hope and difference the support of YMCA makes to young people’s lives, told through first hand accounts in video and photo formats
The aim was to inspire the students and raise awareness of the diverse work of YMCA and support available.
Effect of design support
- Providing confidence; we work directly together, listening to your needs and working with you through the content collated to create a professional finish that is aligned with your brand and tells your story.
- Creating different formats for varying resource capabilities to ensure a seamless presentation each time.
- Saving you time to concentrate on what you enjoy doing rather than struggling with the technical aspects to create resources from scratch.
- Brand asset; evergreen content slides, including editable templates so that you can efficiently update and use for different events and needs.
“These are unusual days for all of us, adapting to many different changes in our working lives.
During these challenging times I have been encouraged by a new sense of community as people are willing to share their expertise and support others where necessary.
As a ‘face-to-face’ person dealing with Zoom and Teams has had its challenges. It was therefore great to have someone to guide me through not only the technical aspects of that but also take away the concern of the content.
After an invite from Parkstone Grammar School to present a lecture to the 6th formers about the YMCA and homelessness, it was great to be able to give all the content to Becks Neale from Inkshed Design Studio and leave it in her capable hands.
The end result was amazing, all on brand, with various different elements, including videos, infographics and PowerPoint.
Thanks Becks, was great working with a true professional!”
Sheena Dayman, Events Manager YMCA Bournemouth
The lecture was a resounding success. Sheena received 89 personal thank you’s from the students, plus a couple of students contacting YMCA directly afterwards, and YMCA are now taking the presentation to more schools.
“A huge thank you for your support to Sheena/YMCA…it is very much appreciated”
Martin Stockley, Senior Operations Manager YMCA Bournemouth | Poole & Christchurch
If you’d like professional design support to help you tell your story throughout the year contact Becks today
Featured image: Morgan Vander Hart on Unsplash
Design layout and infographics: Becks Neale
