CharityComms Podcast: Talking passion, determination and great comms with Zoe Guy and Tom Madders

5:38PM Nov 23, 2020

Speakers:

Lauren Obeng-Owusu, CharityComms

Zoe Guy, YoungMinds

Tom Madders, YoungMinds

Keywords:

people

campaign

mental health

charity

zoe

young

year

tom

lockdown

itv

team

work

pandemic

comms

amazing

bit

home

national autistic society

keyhole

spirit

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the CharityComms podcast. It's been an amazing series so far. But one that has to come to an end, so I thought we'd go out with a bang and bring you two for the price of one. So, today we have joining us Zoe Guy who is the senior digital content officer at YoungMinds. And we have Tom Madders, the campaigns and communications director, also from YoungMinds. Thank you for joining us, both of you. I'm very excited to have you. I say this every time and people are like, why are you always excited, I am I'm just an excitable person. So you are our last guests for this series, but I feel like we're going out with a bang. So I'm really excited. So thank you for joining

My pleasure Lauren.

Thanks for having us.

Of course, of course. So tell us a bit about yourselves. What are your current roles, and what did your comms journey look like? How did you get to where you are now?

Yeah. Me, am I going first? Okay. Do you know what, I feel like a bit of a fraud when I talk about like your like comms career and journey because this is like my second job. But you know, yeah. So I am the digital content manager at YoungMinds. And yeah, I kind of fell into it. I wasn't kind of intending to work for a comms team for a charity. But I've always loved writing and creating and storytelling, I think, I really love like hearing people's stories. I think some people say that's being nosy. But I'm like nah it's getting inspiration. And so I've always loved doing that. And I originally wanted to go into like book publishing, but I was finding it hard to find a job in that area and had a friend who worked for a charity, a small human rights charity, as their like editor. And she said, well, why don't you come and do some copywriting for me, she like put amazing faith in me, because she'd never seen anything I'd written. She just like, was going on my enthusiasm. But yeah, I went there. And I just really fell in love with like the charity, like world and just having the power to make people feel something and do something with the words that you say, and the things that you communicate and the stories you tell. And I just really loved that. And so I was there for a bit. And then I came across YoungMinds when I was looking for a new job. And it was at a time when a lot of my friends were really struggling with their mental health. And my dad's a mental health nurse. So that was something growing up I always knew was like important. And I always knew about kind of the importance of looking after mental health. And I saw what YoungMinds was doing and I just really loved that. Like, it seemed like their website and their digital content wasn't like an afterthought. It was like they were trying to do something for young people in that space. And I loved that. So I applied and yeah, here I am three years later.

Love it. That's a lovely journey. So Tom?

My go. So I, I have been in the sector for about 15 years now. And I started my journey, really as a campaigner, rather than as a comms person. And campaigning always felt like quite a natural fit for me, I've sort of always had this sense that I can't stand the bad guys winning and I can't stand seeing people get a raw deal. And I'm three years into therapy exploring that, so we haven't got time for the reasons behind that today. But Sense was a really good place to start because that was my first job with deaf blind people. My mum was a special needs teacher and she used to teach at home quite a lot. So I was always around disabled and autistic children and young people and just listening to my mum talk about the sorts of struggles that she had as a teacher, the sorts of fights that she had to fight on behalf of the young people she worked with, I think put a lot of that fire in my belly. And I sort of went through a lot of my career in policy and parliamentary and Public Affairs kind of roles. I was all right at it sort of it suited me to some extent. But Zoe will tell you I'm not like a details, details person, I'm more of a big picture kind of guy, and so, I'm better being told the details and making sense of them and communicating them out. And it was at the National Autistic Society where I spent about seven and a half years and I think that's where I really kind of found myself as a professional and worked out the stuff that I love. And that stuff really is in working with the people who I'm there to sort of represent and creating change with them. And I think that's why YoungMinds is such a good fit for me when that job came up. I just leapt at it because the ethos of YoungMinds for everything we do to be driven by those those young people is amazing. And even as a director at YoungMinds, I'm so lucky that I get to work you know, most weeks I'm doing some direct work with young people even really, really close to the mission really close to the cause that we're working on. And that's just such a privilege. So it's a great fit for me.

I feel like he's go on and answered some of my questions ahead of time but that's ok. Do you know what that's so funny that you said you're not really a like details kind of guy because a little info but one of the nominations you received last year someone called you a visionary and I was like oh wow. He just asks for pictures you like the big pictures.

We have to figure out all the details.

That's Zoe's job, I'll just get it done. That's what you need, that's a tag team. Love it. Love it, love it. That's really cool. Actually, I feel like both of you areat different spectrums of your career and your job journey. So I feel like lots of people will be able to relate to you both in that way. And another way they can relate to you is that we're seven months into this kind of lockd, I don't even know where we are now. So yes, I'm sure you guys have had to adapt very, very quickly, every single guest I've spoken to has had to adapt in some way, shape or form. So I want to talk to you about how you've been able to adapt and those many challenges that have been posed due to COVID? And what ways are you keeping your content relevant in an ever changing situation? So ladies first..

COVID and lockdown? Yeah, interesting. I think, I think we were placed in in kind of a good position in a way that at YoungMinds, we'd really in the last few months and year kind of been seeing how our website and our social media and our digital content was providing a kind of what we were saying about providing a service for young people and parents. And we kind of we had moved, like recently to this point of like, yeah, we're gonna provide reassuring content and advice and information for young people about their mental health. And for parents, and for professionals working with young people, and being able to like, just recognise that that's what we were doing with our website and our digital content, kind of, I think meant at the beginning of lockdown when this all kicked off, we were like, we know that we're going to need to be there for young people and for parents. And I think we really quickly back in March established like a bit of a working group that met each Friday to talk about what our like priorities and messages, we're going to be to these to these key audiences and professionals, young people, and parents and we had like different members from different teams. And it was just such a great way of getting a really joined up kind of approach to it all like this is what young people need to hear right now. This is what what what parents need to hear, what professionals need to hear. And we quite quickly, I think, just tried to decide what yeah, what we were going to say to to these audiences and where we could help them which I think for me, that really helped me in lockdown as well, because it was like, whilst this like, huge uncontrollable thing was happening, it was like, oh, I have a purpose at work right now. Like, I need to do this for like young people. And we need to do this for all the families that are kind of just yeah, going into this, like big uncontrollable, like, scary thing. So yeah, we quickly established that kind of group to kind of focus us throughout the next couple of weeks. So yeah.

I think, you know, we've been working on an issue in terms of young people's mental health, which the pandemic has made so stark, like, really, the impact has been frightening to be honest. The NHS did a new prevalence study and in the last three years, since 2017, we've moved from one in nine young people having a mental health problem to one in six. So like that rise in young people needing help has just gone up so so much. And that study was done in July, when to be honest, the pandemic was only really getting started. And we know the impacts' been worse and worse since then. So we, we've got such a tall order, like the cause we're working on, it's become even even more urgent, and it was already pretty big. And it's been sort of as well as the content, and Zoe and the team have done such an amazing job of keeping that content fresh. Because every few weeks, there's been a different thing to respond to whoever it's you know, lockdown starting, or young people not being able to access their mental health support like they used to, or schools closing or the exam fiasco or the lockdown in student halls, there's just been different stuff happening the whole time, which people have needed help with. And we've had to really keep up with it, both in terms of our content for young people, but also our campaigning and our influencing agenda. And that's been kind of, it's been so difficult. It's been really, really fast paced, and everyone's worked flat out to keep up with it. And it's had its plus points in that stuff happens quickly. And how, like we launched a campaign and part of that ask was for more money for mental health charities and literally the next day, at the daily briefing Matt Hancock's up there, referencing YoungMinds and giving 5 million to mental health charities. And, you know, in normal circumstances, you don't get wins like that that quickly. But yeah, so it's been it's been a lot, but some of the some of the wins have been great.

That's amazing. So in terms of your work, are you still very reactive? Would you say that you've had time to step back and be a bit more strategic and think, or has it just been there's no time to do that kind of thinking around you're content?

A bit of both actually. So we've, there's still so much to respond to, and we're having to be reactive. And if we're not being reactive for young people and what they need, then we're not doing it right. But at the same time in the last two, three weeks, we have had that moment to go, right what next? Let's, let's actually take a breath and think about what do the next six months hold? And what can we build towards rather than just being on the backfoot and responding the whole time because, you know, young people need us to do both. Basically, we can't constantly be responding to the agenda, and we have to be setting it sometimes.

That's great. I actually want to go back to the first question in terms of your journeys and ask, have your own esxperience influenced your work? And how do you draw on that every single day? Zoe you mentioned about your dad being a mental health nurse and also Tom your mum and the work she did? How do you think that's affected what you do and how you do it?

Yeah. I think, so my dad's a mental health nurse, and my mum was also a nurse. And so I think growing up, I just saw people that like, cared for people in like an amazing, amazing way. But also could see that there was so much that needed to change, I think as well to help them do their jobs, and you know, more funding was needed. And especially for my dad, as a mental health nurse, I just like saw him go through like immense pressure and, and how much was on his plate and how much the the services and the system needed more support and needed more funding. And so I think, when you're kind of growing up in that environment, you know, it's, it makes you think, like, that change is needed and like, how can I, how can I be a part of that? And how can I strive for the better? I think, you know, we've just spoke about Tom being like a visionary. I think part of that is it, isn't it? It's kind of like seeing what people need now and seeing, understanding the circumstances that people are in now and then having a vision for how that can like, change and kind of wanting to strive for that. So yeah, I think that's, that's how I've kind of related it to my work. And then I guess, with mental health, like, we all have mental health. So for me and lockdown, it's like, okay, the things that I've been struggling with in lockdown they're also going to be things that young people are also going to be struggling with in lockdown. So it's sometimes it's hard to not separate that kind of everyday life of your work. Because, you know, like I said, yes, we all have mental health. So it's gonna like it mingles and stuff. So yeah, I think that's how I kind of try and keep in touch with what young people are thinking. It's kind of like, okay, lockdown's been really hard. I think in terms of like, there's a lot of experiences and things that would have happened this year that I feel a bit robbed of. Sometimes when I look back, like my best friend had a baby and like, six months later, I've still not been able to meet her hold her and, and then I think about what all the experiences that young people have been robbed off, like leaving school and starting University. And while this is how I feel, then how do they feel? So I think it's, it keeps me in touch with like, yeah, what they're going through with their mental health, I think.

With mental health, I guess it's one of those, you know, a lot of the cliches around it are quite true. And, and it was working at YoungMinds that sort of set me on my own mental health journey. You know, I mean, I've always had my ups and downs with how I'm feeling. But there's only so many kind of radio interviews you can do where you tell young people they should talk to someone before you kind of go, hang on, maybe, maybe I should talk to someone. And, and I did, and I've been in therapy for the last three years, and it's the best thing I've ever done. And I think without YouungMinds, it might have taken me a whole lot longer to do that. So there's sort of the interconnection of working on mental health and sort of that own, my own self discovery around my mental health has been pretty remarkable. YoungMinds has really changed me as a person.

I want to touch upon the amazing work you do with fundraising and campaigns, it can't not be spoken about. So in particular, I wanted to bring focus to your flagship fundraising event HelloYellow. This year, I think it was it fell just in time with World Mental Health day. But with being digital stretched so much - it's something that we always hear in the sector - were you worried that you wouldn't get the same engagement as you had in prior years? Or did you get more? I just want to hear more about what happened really?

Yeah, HelloYellow. I love HelloYellow. It's one of my favourite campaigns.

Can I just say Zoe's on the website if you want to check her out in her yellow, she looks great.

Yeah see this is the issue, right? Because I've managed the website people think that I've put my own picture of myself up on the homepage, and it was the brand and marketing team. Yes. I just want to say that. I haven't plastered my face all over the website intentionally.

So yeah, HelloYellow is our kind of like flagship fundraising and like brand campaign and we you know, ask people to wear yellow for mental health day to show young people they're not alone with their mental health, and it's predominantly kind of a school's campaign. So getting kids to dress up in yellow for school and do activities and wellbeing activities in class and lesson plans. And we also encourage offices and community groups. So it's basically everything that lockdown made really, really difficult, kind of that's what HelloYellow was intended for. So, it did present a lot of challenges, because I think we, we launched it in May, the kind of the promotion for the event in October, and back in May, we were just like are schools gonna be open in October. Are they gonna be open but like, like two metres apart? Like, what does a socially distanced school even look like? Back in May that was still such a like uncertainty. So I think from the beginning, we were having to think, okay, how are we going to adapt to this coming up with like virtual lesson plans and preparing ourselves, but for different scenarios, and I think the main change probably came with just our messaging. I think when we first launched the campaign in May, we hadn't addressed lockdown that much in the kind of copy in all our messaging. And then I think, a couple of weeks in we were like, we really need to just talk about what, what is happening right now. And so, you know, we made it kind of like, we know that things right now are so uncertain, and so difficult but this will be a moment that your school and your community group and your office really need as a moment of like unity and coming together. And that's where this idea of like a theme of hope came from. And we kind of made that our focus for the, for this year's kind of campaign. And it was amazing. I think we really were really nervous a few weeks before that, it was like, I was really nervous that it was gonna be a massive flop. I don't know if Tom would go that far. But I was I was panicking, honestly.

I mean, signup was definitely slower throughout the summer than in previous years.

Yeah. And with schools going back, I think we could just see the enormous pressure that like teachers were under and so we really had to put ourselves in their shoes and think how can we make this as easy as possible for teachers right now. And then the teachers can have so little kind of time and, and resource, so how can we resource them in the best possible way to take part in this event in their school, and it was really amazing. I think we, I was blown away on the day, just kind of the amount of activity on the hashtag of just seeing, like little kids dressed up in yellow, and like holding up posters of what it means to talk about their mental health. Like, honestly, I sat there like in tears. It's a good thing I was working from home, because monitoring that hashtag, I was just sitting there, like, in tears most of the day.

I looked through it yesterday, as it was making me really, really happy to see you've had so much engagement. So it's, it's good to see lockdown didn't take away all the joys. So definitely, how did you find it Tom?

Yeah I mean Zoe hit the nail on the head, really, it was, it was a little bit of a, you know, we had to we had to really sort of rally around each other during that, during that sort of build up, because no one really knew how it was going to go. And we just had to keep persevering with this idea. And the payoff on the day was just incredible. Like it was, it was really, really emotional, just seeing what it meant to people. And I think that's one of the things that really struck me about HelloYellow, strikes me about it rather, when I first joined, Iit had just done its first. So that was, this is the fifth this year, I wasn't really sure about it, it just seemed like another charity day where people wore a colour, that was the brand colour for the charity and raised money but I think in that in that second year, we really built it and a lot of credit to Lucy Taylor Mitchinson. She was our brand marketing manager who is now at Scope, who was the driving force behind those early years, turning it into something that really meant something to people. Like that show of solidarity of young people wearing yellow, just as a sign that they're not alone, that people are thinking about them, it can be a very, very lonely experience experiencing a mental health problem and, and knowing that people are thinking about you just in and of itself is really, really powerful. And I had a message from a colleague in the sector on the evening of HelloYellow which really made me smile. He said his eight year old daughter had just come home from school and told him how important it was to look after our feelings and asked him about his mental health. And I just thought what an incredible gift, like a world away from when I was growing up at school and the sorts of kind of conversations we're starting and the emotional literacy we're starting to embed in children from a really young age. Obviously, that's not just HelloYellow but it's a, it's a sign of of how far things have come. And that HelloYellow, I think has become Louis in our team described it as a bit of an institution now it's just become something that people look forward to each year. And yeah, I think this year really showed if it could withstand a pandemic, then it really has kind of become something quite special.

I can see how passionate you are about it. It's nice to see.

You've, you've got a year to get your yellow outfit ready, Lauren.

Don't worry the hashtag's going to be fire now I'm on it. I have braids, I've got yellow socks,yellow shoes everything already. But I also wanted to touch upon another campaign, which I think is equally as exciting and important, and it's the Britain get talking campaign. And I think Tom, I think you'll have a lot of interesting insights to share. So for those that don't know, this is a mental wellness campaign to help families get closer and share their struggles with mental health. And I wanted you to tell us more about the work I'm doing alongside Mind and has been working with another charity in collaboration and providing advice to that campaign.

Yeah it's been a wild ride. Right from the start, I think what has made this work is that ITV have approached it in the right way. So they engaged with us and Mind and lots of other charities when they were starting out because they really wanted to do something that made a difference. And it wasn't a vanity project, it was something where they just really wanted to fill a gap, I guess, and and sort of solve a problem. I'll be honest, in the early stages of it, I was a tiny bit sceptical. And I say that because it was another talking campaign. And, you know, in the mental health world, I think, particularly if you work in it, that's the message of lots of big mental health campaigns. And it's a really, really important message. I mean, I told you about the impact it had on me personally. So it's one which we completely get behind. But was there room for another one was a question I was genuinely asking myself. But I think there's something about the power of that Brand ITV and all the stars they've got behind them and the programmes and the schedules, which transformed it into something just sort of enormous and reached an audience that I think we struggle to reach. I think that's one of the most important things for us is that that ITV audience, perhaps aren't people who've been saturated by these kind of messages already. And, and for a lot of them, it would probably was reaching them for you know, for one of the first times there was this moment when it launched where Ant and Dec on the Britain's Got Talent Show, paused the whole show for a massive, one minute silence, really awkward, really weird. But it just worked. And then and then a whole ad break of silence as well afterwards. And I was just talking to Amy from Mind afterwards and she'd been working at Mind for a long, long time, and she just said, like, you know, when she started working in mental health campaigning to have imagined that a primetime ITV show would have its headline moment focusing on mental health, well you just never would have dreamed of it. And the way the mental health conversation has changed over the last many years in which Mind and YoungMinds have both played a massive part alongside some other amazing charities. It is just incredible really, I think working with Mind on it made it work as well. So I think between us, ourselves, Uncommon, the creative agency, ITV and us as charities was a really, really good partnership where I think between ourselves and Mind, we were really good at keeping ITV and Uncommon on their toes in terms of making sure their language was appropriate, inoffensive, not falling into some of the traps that we know would just wind up our audience. And on their part, just as importantly, it was them telling us that they knew their audience, they knew what their audience would respond to. And sometimes even if the language wasn't quite what we would want, it would reach their, their audience better than than what we wanted. So it was a little bit of trust. And in the first couple of iterations of the campaign, we had to trust each other. But but it's yeah, it's turned into something quite amazing. And I think it's going to go for another two, three years. Yeah. So that's really cool.

That's exciting. One more for you Tom coming your way. So as director of communications and campaigns, in my little stalking slash research session, I did see, I can see you live and breathe YoungMinds, and I really see your passionate about your work. But I also want to talk to you more about how you try not to blur the lines between home and work. I think that's been a real issue with a lot of people during the pandemic, because now you're at home and you have to work. When do you switch off? When do you carry on you even though you know it's not good for you?What do you do to kind of manage your wellbeing? And do you encourage your team to practice some of the things that you do?

Er yeah.

You're smiling, does that mean that you're not doing it?

Do you know what, I was thinking about last night actually and it was about 9:30pm and I was like, tweeting angry tweets about the silence from the government, on just like they just learned that one in six children and young people have a mental health problem and no one said shit, we should do something about that. And it was making me really angry. And so I was tweeting about that late last night and I went to bed really angry. And it's a classic example of what I should not be doing. I think a lot of the working from home is new to me, and it's not new to everyone but I think those boundaries are really really important. Luckily, my partner's quite good at making me keep some so she's she's good at tearing me away from the laptop at an appropriate time. She's quite heavily pregnant now. So you know, she needs me to be around and helping her pick stuff off the floor that she can't reach anymore. So I've got I've got a good excuse. But I think certainly, at the start of the pandemic, I started to try to form some really good habits. So therapy once a week, I try to do mindfulness once a day in the evenings just to sort of finish work on a on a relaxing note, big fan of headspace app, and I've got for the first time in ages I got properly into running, it was just like escaping the house and getting really into exercise always did did me really well. And I think as a team, we have, we've got a lovely spirit in terms of looking out for each other checking in with each other, and sort of giving each other space to be honest about how we're feeling and, and open about that. But I do think that, you know, we and most workplaces, have got quite a long way to go. I mean, we've talked so much about how how big an impact the pandemic has had on all of us. And it's a huge task to keep people's spirits up during during that time. And it's a huge task for all of us individually to look after ourselves. So I think we're trying our best. But I definitely think there's a way to go.

Are there any tactics that you use Zoe.

I think I try and practice what we tell young people, which is at the moment, keep that keep routine, that's been really helpful for me in lockdown. I think, trying to not Selling Sunset until 2am in the morning, and keeping a routine and talking to people, like we've said, that's one of the main messages we give out to young people. And it takes a while for you to realise that you need to do that for yourself, exactly as Tom's saying. I think Tom has created a really amazing team culture of honesty and vulnerability. So I think people are not afraid to say if they're, if they're finding things tricky. You know, we have, we have weekly and monthly meetings where Tom will specifically kind of say, like, like, when we go round, can you say what you've been finding difficult, and people are really honest in those times. And that's, that's been so helpful. And I think, I guess with charities, a lot of the time, you've got people as well that are working there because they have a real connection to the cause. And I think that sometimes means that content matter is maybe just a little bit too close to home, but I feel really safe at YougMinds that if something was ever too like too much for me, like just a bit too close to home, I feel comfortable that I could like say like, actually, this is my limit. I can't I can't work on that or that kind of thing. And I think it's yeah, knowing your limits, and when it's okay to step back. And we also, thanks to Tom had an excellent game of through the keyhole throughout lockdown.

So Tom made us all, I mean, actually, when I say it probably sounds a bit weird, isn't it, he made us all take pictures of our homes and send them to him. And then he wrote elaborate descriptions about them and put the photos up. And in our little team chat each week, we had to guess whose house it was. And I don't know, it was so simple, but it just brought so much fun. And I want it to continue, I think we need a new version of it, a winter edition of through the keyhole.

The winner got a an autographed picture from the original host of through the keyhole, Lloyd Grossman.

Wow you invested. We have team challenges as well. But I feel like this is really cool and I'm definitely going to steal it. Tom you really are a visionary and really got these good ideas. Ok, another question, I'm not sure if you both know, but we recently ran a seminar about key trends shaping UK campaigning and what social change looks like today. And it's been crazy the cmpaign's that are going on, especially like Black Lives Matter or those on climate change all of those things happening especially last year. And one of the key messages I think was really important that came out was the need to do more doing with rather than doing for with your users. So do you both feel like YoungMinds have been taking on that approach with collaborating with those with real life experience? And taking their input to shape your campaigns?

Yeah, very much so. And I think that's, that's one of the things that makes YoungMinds the charity that is to be honest, it's probably the most important thing is that, you know, not just our campaigns, but we try to make sure that everything we do has young people's influence. So you know, right at the top, we've got some young people as trustees, we've got a youth panel who's like a shadow Board of Trustees, and they keep us strategically aligned to what young people need. And they recruit our staff and they, you know, they get involved in everything important about the running of the charity. And then we've got our activists who are just incredible young people. We've got around 70, 14 to 25 year olds whose role is to bring their lived experience to our work and everything from the content that Zoe was talking about we've had to keep alive on the website to the campaigns we run, to the information we provide to parents is all driven by the insights young people give us and in in many cases and increasingly in cases is always co produced with young people. So young people are curating the pages writing it and even more. We're trying to make sure that young people, rather than people like me are speaking in the media speaking to politicians, we had just this week we have had young people on Channel five news on ITV. Speaking in Parliament at a Select Committee, we are really trying to make sure that it's young people speaking about young people's issues as much as possible. There's obviously a role for for staff to do that, too. But we always want to make sure that it's alongside young people as much as possible. And it is what makes this a really exciting place to be. And I think not only does it kind of make our work better, because it gives it that authenticity, you always know what you're saying is actually what young people think. But the impact on the young people who get involved too, is just incredible. Like to see the journeys of young people, we deliberately handpick people who've had really, you know, difficult times, you know, with their mental health or other circumstances, and they've been through a lot and to see the transformation from the first day of training when they come to us. And we're sort of helping them to build their confidence and find their voice, to I don't know standing up at Tory party conference and speaking their minds is quite incredible. And, yeah, it's one of the things that that gives me life in my role.

That's amazing. I just wanted to find out more, how do you what's the rprocess of like recruiting these young people as trustees and to be activists to be a part of the campaigns?

Well, because of the work of Zoe and, and our social media team, and Shirin our head of comms, we've got an incredible to reach young people. So on our Instagram channel, our website, and so on, we've got this incredibly engaged community of young people who just want to get involved. And so when we present opportunities to get involved, they do and they do so in numbers. So you know, even just to say, put out a survey to say what you know, what's life like being been like in COVID, within three or four days, we'll have 2000 young people telling us, and that's really, really powerful, it gives us real information that we can then use. But that does mean that for the activists programme, so we recruit to it twice a year, and we recruit 10 to 15 young people each each time we recruit, and we have around 250 people applying so that that kind of sucks, because turning down activists is one of the hardest because they write these incredibly powerful applications, all about what they've been through and why they want to create change with us. And as things stand, we're only selecting a small handful to join us. Now we're doing something about that. We're trying to invest in new digital ways. So we've got a prototype app on the go, Well, hopefully we can use digital to just say yes to a whole lot more young people. And people can get involved with us in different ways. But at the moment, yeah, the application process is really, really competitive. And yeah, and we wish we could say yes to a whole lot more.

Yeah, that does sound like a shame. But it's really interesting to see how much input they actually do have. I mean, I'm sure lots of charities try to actually give their users a lot of say, but the fact that you're actually doing it, and you've done it prior to COVID is really good. So what I really wanted to talk about and why we're really here is that these two were winners of the ICA awards last year. They had amazing nominations, which is why they were chosen. So being very full of life and just ready to take on every task and Tom being the visionary that he is. So your teams seem to love you so much, do tell us a bit more about your team. And what do you think that magic ingredient is about you guys and your success so far?

Oh wow, I mean, our team, yeah, are amazing. And I think I just love there's such a spirit of like collaboration, and creativity. And I think I love that we're all up for hearing each other's ideas. And you know, it's it's equal footing, and that it's kind of like when we gather around together as a team, we want everyone to pitch in. And we really work on things together. And I think you can see in our campaigns, like different bits of people in it, and I love that we all kind of stick a finger in the pie, as it were. Is that a saying? I don't even know.

So I love that. And I think yeah, some hugely talented people - our head of comms Shirin is incredible. And she was a inspiring communicator last last year. Yeah. And and that inspires you to want to do better when you've got like, people leading you in that. So yeah, I think just a very collaborative creative team.

Yeah. And I think there's there's nothing more inspiring than knowing that you're doing something amazing. And I think that we are to be honest, like I think that turning up to work each day and knowing that the stuff you're doing isn't isn't just stuff, it's really really good stuff that is making a huge impact and having a big difference creates that spirit of, of wanting to do your best of trusting each other to make mistakes and and testing and learning stuff. And I think that there is just a spirit of helping each other out building each other up. And I think that it's partly spoken to by the fact that I'd say most of our comms team, a large portion of which have have been promoted since they joined YoungMinds. So they've kind of come in at a level really learned and grown and have wanted to stay. And we've wanted to keep them. And despite the pressures of it being quite hard to sort of grow teams within the charity sector. We've, you know, we've found ways to reward good performance where we can keep people motivated. And we've really kept the core of a team together for quite a long time. And I think that really engenders that that trust and that togetherness that has been so crucial during COVID.

Yes, so I'm nosy. So I just want to ask, so what kind of rewards do you offer?

Rewards. Oh man, I pitched that wrong.

Karaoke.

Karaoke.

We do do karaoke.

I love it. Guys can I come?

Yes.

Good. Oh, that's good. No, but in terms of keeping up morale, I can see that that's important in a way to, you know, maintain that unity and collaboration.

I think right from the, from the top of the organisation. So Emma Thomas, our chief executive and our senior leadership team, there's definitely a spirit of openness of praise of wanting to recognise hard work and, and effort and, and excellence, basically. And I think a big part of those the reward people get, I hope, is that recognition and is being seen and and noticed. What I meant when I said reward, I guess was that, you know, we recognise when someone's ready to grow, we recognise that, if there's a next step for them to take, we want them to take it with us if they can. And I'm really pleased that in lots of cases, Zoe included, Shirin included, we have managed to do that to say actually already, we don't want you to take your talents elsewhere. As great as that is. I love it, I love it when someone goes to another charity and makes them great, too. But yeah, it's great to keep keep our most talented people here. That's really cool.

So I'm going to let everybody into their secret. In case you didn't know, these two are also judges for this year's 2020 ICAs. Now obviously, you can't tell us who you voted for or who was nominated or all that jazz. But I wanted to ask is there something someone said in terms of the nominated that stood out to you or made you feel extremely inspired,

Can I go first. So Zoe, and I are splitting these out there's one in the group that I'm not judging, so I'm allowed to have a view but who I know and this individual I used to work with at a National Autistic Society. And the application for them was just so spot on. It was talking about how amazing a communicator she is, in terms of the spirit she brings to stuff, the realness, like she is just herself. And that's what makes her so compelling she never puts on an act for anyone. She's a young woman of colour. And she is, the application said, is particularly good at telling old white men what's, what. And, and she is, and I think, yeah, that application was just was just brilliant. It was short, sharp to the point but it just really captured the essence of what makes this person brilliant.

Oh, yeah. Oh, the nominations were so great to read. And I think not like something specific that stood out but just in general, how many people just during COVID have like really rallied people together and done some incredible things to keep up morale in their teams and just kind of gone above and beyond at such a kind of unsettling time. They've really given their all and that's just amazing. I think so yeah, this year, I think it's going to be really cool just to see what people have been doing at a difficult time.

Oh, I love your answers. Oh I'm intrigued I want to know who wins, guys you have to attend basically we want to know who won.

We're not the only judges.

It's true there's like four others so you're good you're good. But I want to end by firstly thanking you both for taking up your time in your busy busy schedules to come and speak to me I really appreciate it. You're both amazing and what I like to do to end each episode is give three sentences which I begin and you will both end. So working for a charity is...

Even better than people tell you it is.

Very rewarding.

Being a part of the sector is...

Like being part of a big, supportive family of people you can ask for help and take inspiration from and learn from.

Very humbling, and yeah, constantly kind of in awe of what people are doing and how, yeah, amazing they are.

Lovely and lastly, being seen as an inspiring communitor feels like...

I've not answered this in the right way. But I was just gonna say the fact that people in my team took the time to nominate me meant more to me than winning it. It was a lovely feeling to know that people had done that.

Being seen as an inspiring communicator is an honour that I'm ready to pass on to the next load of worthy winners.

That was poetry. I'm gonna end it there. Thank you again to both of you for taking the time out to talk to me. Again, everybody, please do attend the ICAs, you won't be disappointed. I'll be hosting so you'll see me there.So yeah, that's it from us, and we'll see you later.