The challenge
How Midnight helped Gatwick Airport deliver lasting impact and reach through a positive PR campaign
It’s a ‘perfect storm’ for charities right now. The cost of living crisis has put charities and community groups of all sizes under pressure regarding funding and accessing resources to run operations and support its audiences. At the same time, more and more people are seeking help. However, the challenge isn’t always a lack of funding. Low awareness of eligible funding sources and how to apply for funds is a significant barrier to many charities and local bodies seeking support. Hundreds of charities miss out on available funding in this way.
This is precisely why Gatwick Airport (now London Gatwick) drafted in Midnight to shine a light on its Gatwick Airport Community Trust and Gatwick Foundation Fund.
The Trust is an independent charity that has been in operation since 2002. It awards grants annually for deserving projects within the area of benefit, which covers parts of East and West Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
The Gatwick Foundation Fund is managed by individual Community Foundations for Kent, Sussex and Surrey on behalf of London Gatwick, which oversees the programme and assesses all applications. It was founded in 2016 to provide support and funding to charities and community groups in Sussex, Surrey and Kent. The fund provides more than £200,000 in grants to local projects and community groups focusing on children and young people, improving health and well-being, improving skills and tackling social isolation and the cost of living crisis.
While the Foundation Funds and Trust had successfully delivered funds to a number of bodies, the client wanted a strategy to increase awareness and applications for all its funds and raise the recipients’ profiles to tell a positive news story about the Trust and the Foundation Funds.
How Midnight met the challenge
Funding is difficult to understand and is even more difficult to access for communities and charity groups. As a team, one of the biggest challenges for us was understanding the structure of the funding system so we could effectively communicate the mechanics to journalists and readers.
And, as interesting as charity financing is, that’s not what grabs attention. By placing a focus on telling the meaningful, often heart-wrenching stories around the work of the community and charity groups who had received awards, we had a rich source of stories to “sell in” to the media where appropriate.
We developed a media relations campaign designed to raise awareness across three counties, Sussex, Surrey and Kent. This would be driven by hyperlocal press releases in relevant areas to drive the message as close to the potential recipients as possible, supported by the case study strategy.
Right from the start, Midnight was trusted to pull together the case studies and gather information directly from the recipients to turn into press releases and case studies.
But this is where the campaign really made a difference. A crucial part of our remit from Gatwick was to go beyond promoting funding opportunities. The client’s busy in-house PR team has limited additional capacity, so our brief included promoting the recipients of the funds and giving the gift of PR to charities and groups who otherwise wouldn’t have access.
The experience for our team has undoubtedly been one of the most wonderful parts of this campaign – seeing how delighted recipients are when they discover they have secured funding that can help their audience.
Exceeding every target to reach an even bigger audience
The campaign was an unmitigated success in delivering a broader range of fund recipients than in previous years, with awards for up to 18 good causes across the three counties. A wide range of recipients included Guildford Shakespeare Company’s drama work going into care homes, Oaks Specialist College in Tonbridge focusing on education and training for individuals with learning difficulties.
The combination of highly targeted press releases and the pull of the case studies in driving media coverage allowed us to exceed our targets by a long way. More than 70 items of coverage were secured in our first six months, with a total potential audience reach of 22.5 million. In all, London Gatwick was mentioned a staggering 535 times across coverage.
Connecting valuable community bodies with funding and publicity for lasting impact
Our work to raise the profile of the Gatwick Airport Community Trust and Gatwick Foundation Fund and improve the visibility and accessibility of funding and publicity opportunities has made an impact on those communities served by the fund’s successful recipients.
As a result of the campaign, there was an increase in the number of people aware of the availability of funding and also an increase in awareness around the charities and community groups that often do great work unseen by most people. By allocating PR support as part of the funding arrangement, we could deliver impact beyond the money used to support the work of the recipients. More people now know about the community groups featured in the campaigns allowing these groups to expand their reach and help even more people in need of their support.
