PR and content marketing are crucial for small charities since they often lack access to the generous advertising budgets enjoyed by the larger charities. Digital communications can be incredibly useful for fundraising and campaigning on a low budget. With its Social Innovation Project Mynewsdesk supports charities by providing them with the necessary tools to make the most of their digital communications.

Peter Britten, managing director of Mynewsdesk UK, says, “Small charities often work on specific issues so are able to give insightful expert comment and offer content of strong media value if only they had more time and contemporary tools to react to the news agenda. Earlier this year the UK government announced plans to cut £2.8bn in public funding for the third sector over the next five years, meaning small charities will be under increasing pressure to work with limited resources and significantly reduced government support.”

Mynewsdesk is offering its all-in-one brand newsroom and multimedia public relations platform to 150 small charities in six countries. Expert training and communications strategy support will also be provided free of charge.

The charities are being chosen by Mynewsdesk employees in Sweden, Germany, The UK, Denmark, Norway and Singapore. The employees have been asked to choose a charity that resonates with their own personal social concerns. Because of this the Social Innovation Project has the dual benefit of driving employee engagement.

Mynewsdesk’s platform will enable them to disseminate their content across all of their social media channels and will provide them with insight into how each piece of content is performing.

Britten says, “The online newsrooms will give charities the easy to use tools to efficiently run more integrated communications campaigns across multiple platforms and channels using a variety of formats – text, video and images. The professional presentation of the newsrooms will have more impact upon opinion formers and donors.”

UK charities who will benefit from the programme, chosen with the help of fundraising site JustGiving, include Tree of Hope, SportsAid, Stroke Association, the FSI and The Zero Alpha Foundation.

Breege Zachary, communications manager at SportsAid, says, “We support over a thousand young people every year and promoting their achievements through Mynewsdesk makes a huge difference to them and our fundraising efforts. It also saves us time and we’re already seeing our work being more widely recognised and reported on as a result, which is fantastic.”