Helping others during a time of need

If anything good is to come out of this very strange period, it’s that we are seeing some incredible initiatives emerge where people in our creative industry are offering support and help to others in need. Brands, organisations, and SMEs still need creative or strategic input, they still need work to be done, they still need to run campaigns but most, like our industry are struggling with cash right now. I thought I’d write a round-up blog post highlighting some of the incredible initiatives that have been launched recently: 

Not Fur’Long Creative - is a group of advertising people who have been furloughed from some of the top London ad agencies. Instead of sitting on their laurels, doing DIY or home baking, they’ve come together to form Not Fur’Long Creative to offer free support to help small businesses “thrive and survive during these challenging times.”

Community PR initiative - set up to help charities and public sector organisations in need with free communication support at a time PR is out of financial reach. Their aim is to also provide furloughed workers in communications an opportunity to network and build new contacts.

 #CrisisConnections - by Patrick Olszowski at Outrageous Impact - is connecting over 80 professionals to charities and purpose-led organisations for free 1hr advice sessions. To date, they have delivered 25 hours of free support. Patrick has also launched Crisis Navigator to teach organisations how to do rapid research and comms to understand what people want at the moment.

The Dots - launched a coronavirus support hub where people who have been furloughed are offering their services to The Dots community. Some of this support ranges from offering time to charities to skill swapping to more senior people in the industry offering to mentor and support those who have been furloughed. 

AUFI - have launched Now needs New where a selection of their creative partners have agreed to donate their time, expertise and experience towards a series of one-to-one creative strategy sessions. This is available to all brands all over the Worlds to help them see opportunity in the new challenges we face and help push companies and their business forward.

Julian Hearn from HUEL has launched #pledge30 to encourage business owners in the UK to give 30 minutes of their time to mentor young businesses struggling with the effects of COVID-19. We’ve seen a few agencies leaders take part in this campaign such as Steve Barlett from Social Chain and Emily Austen from Emerge.

Will Nice from Brenton Blue is offering a free brand audit to help organisations see how their business appears to the outside world.

And finally to support agencies John from Kitchen Table is offering 6-months free access to his Community where small agencies form, connect and thrive.

At Cherry, we have also been offering free 45-minute New Business Surgeries to help agencies with their new business growth during this tricky time. 

If there are any I have missed out, please let me know and I’ll edit the post to include them.

I hope that when we come out on the other side, we all continue to work in a kinder, less selfish way. I think we will. 

Lucy x