Leeds Mencap – Communications & Content Case Study

About Leeds Mencap

Leeds Mencap is a completely independent charity, started by and for those with learning disabilities. They’ve come a long way since they opened their doors more than 65 years ago. Now, they support more than 450 families and individuals on their journey with learning disabilities.

Services Provided

Our Team for this project

The Project

AFG began working with Leeds Mencap in early 2020 and wrote a comprehensive marketing strategy for the organisation. The document outlined how Leeds Mencap was facing uncertain future. There was a real urgency to improve the marketing to significantly improve the fundraising capabilities of the charity.

The challenge was that there was not enough activity to get people engaged. What was needed was a major effort in attracting new potential donors and to keep them engaged for the future.

What we set out to do was to build a campaign that combined with clearer, bolder and tailored messaging and communications to raise awareness and promote engagement. 

Our role began with our involvement in the working up the brand Communications and Content Strategy. The Imagine if campaign was developed with the key aim to highlight what it is like to have a learning disability and show what’s important to young people with learning disabilities and their families.  It had three clear distinct phases (awareness, education, action) which involved videos and a series of key messages across social media channels and additionally included offline channels like PR, blogs and emails. 

An integral part of the project was the refreshing of Leeds Mencap website and the re-writing copy and content for the site. 

When Coronavirus meant a UK lockdown and meant changes to all our lives, we rapidly re-messaged and reworked elements of the campaign: for those with learning disabilities it can be even harder to understand the changes in our daily lives that Covid brings and we used this as a key part of the new mini- campaign. 

Throughout the project we have offered digital comms support helping the Leeds Mencap with E-Newsletters, blogs and press releases, as well as their social media content. Flexing around changes in staff, the challenges of the lockdown and working for home we have been able to up-skill team members, write content and distribute press releases, as needed. 

As the project draws to a close the evaluation has deemed it a great success. They saw an increase in the social media followers and engagement. Donations increased, especially after each of their e-newsletter campaigns. 

We have helped Leeds Mencap not only raise funds and awareness of the work it does, but also given staff key skills in helping communicate across a number of platforms.