Media Trust working with Big Local

Mark, Boston Big Local, found Media Trust’s help to define his partnership’s objectives has increased the reach and diversity of those benefiting from their community grants.

We were a bit sceptical to be honest. When Oliver, from Media Trust, said he’d come in and do an audit, looking at what we do and suggest ideas about how to improve the way we communicate, I thought “Do we really need their help?” However, the partnership said “Let’s go for it!”, so that’s what we did. And Media Trust far exceeded our expectations.

Oliver focused our minds on strategic communications and defining our Big Local objectives. These can be summed up as:

• Making people more aware of our Big Local as a local funding source
• Encouraging more people to get involved in the partnership

Big Local areas can access specialist support from Media Trust and 3 more new partnerships up until 2021.

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Since working with Media Trust we’ve recruited two new partnership members and re-focused our social media and website on these two points. The Samaritans, for example, were recently awarded Big Local funding because of better promotion of our Dragon’s Den type funding pot, which we call the Community Chest.

Media Trust pointed out that by simplifying our grants process for the Community Chest, we could encourage a wider range of applications.

We initially had only 3 people apply. Since changing the application process, so that people need spend only 5 minutes filling out a form, and clearer social media promotion, 23 people have applied.

We ran another round in February this year, and twelve people applied without us having to push it at all. We’ve received a much broader range of applicants too.

“Our grants are now going to much more diverse members of the community, such as English classes for Eastern-European people.”

We’re building relationships because of increased awareness of our work. One of our partners now proof read and provide critical feedback on our newsletters.

Media Trust helped to focus our ideas and the need for resources to put these into action. They talked to us about the importance of having someone responsible for social media and communications and what a great platform it can be for sharing ideas and engagement.