Celebrating a Blumer's journey through the Third Sector: A farewell Interview with Chris Guiton
Chris Guiton, one of our pioneer Blumers, is now approaching retirement after an extensive and illustrious career in the public and third sectors. Anna from Blume sat down with him to explore his insights into charity communications and his experiences across a whopping 59 Blume projects!
Looking back over your career, what are the most rewarding writing projects you have ever worked on, and why did they stick with you?
That's a good question. I've worked on many really rewarding writing projects over the years. The two that stand out are a consultation paper I wrote in 1998 entitled 'Combating Cowboy Builders', when I was working for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. It set out a range of options aimed at protecting householders from incompetent or dishonest builders (which led to the Trustmark scheme). It was a great opportunity to test both my research and drafting skills and get my teeth into a major project, which got significant public visibility. One of the more entertaining responses I received to the paper was from a Texan rancher who claimed that by using the term 'cowboy' in this way, I was discriminating against a powerful symbol of the American West!
The other project is far more recent. Out of the many rewarding Blume projects I've undertaken, the one that stands out is the lengthy series of blog posts I wrote for The Joy Club on a range of arts and cultural topics. Getting to write about my favourite novels, paintings, musicians, poets, the history of English pubs, how to play Wordle – you name it – was a dream commission!
You've worked across both the public and third sectors. What's changed the most in how these organisations communicate, and what's stayed the same?
Probably an obvious thing to say, but the major change that I've experienced across both the public and third sectors over the years has been the dramatic growth in their use of digital communication platforms (websites, social media etc) to reach wider audiences and promote better engagement. A sea change if ever there was one!
Specific to the third sector, I think a growing professionalism is evident as charities think more strategically about their communications, replacing a broad-based 'megaphone' approach with a shift towards more authentic 'storytelling' and tailored messaging to engage people at a deeper level.
Specific to the public sector, it's also interesting to note that we've seen a politicisation of the civil service and its communications since the Blair Government, including a greater focus on media management and controlling the news agenda (for better or for worse!).
And what's stayed the same across both sectors? Those evergreen topics: the importance of developing trust-based relationships with stakeholders, using clear messaging, and tailoring communications to an audience.
You're a master wordsmith and have written many winning bids alongside managing grant schemes. What would you say are the common mistakes and pitfalls for a charity that is crafting its narrative for funders?
As you might expect, this varies between charities, depending on their size, experience and resourcing. But the three things that struck me as common pitfalls while working with charities on funding bids were:
- The client being too close to the day-to-day operation of the charity to be able to stand back and write a compelling bid that is going to catch a grant-maker's eye (which is where a freelance copywriter's fresh perspective is so important!).
- Challenges nailing down, at a detailed level, the positive impact the charity is making in the community, needed to inform the development of the bid.
- Clients relying on formulaic, stock copy for new bids rather than tailoring a proposal to meet the grant-maker's specific funding goals.
As someone who's got under the skin of many organisations, what have you learned about what makes a truly compelling charity narrative?
I'd say it revolves around four things:
- Creating a strong narrative of what you do and the difference you make (which addresses the limited knowledge grant assessors may have of the topic).
- Setting out your understanding of what are often complex issues, providing evidence of need, showing how you will tackle the problem, defining the projected outcomes, describing your track record.
- Demonstrating authenticity by using your beneficiaries to provide compelling, first-hand evidence of the positive impact you have in communities, while recognising the challenges you may have faced along the way.
- Ensuring the application uses clear, active language, steers clear of jargon, and avoids the temptation to cram too much detail in.
Of your 59 Blume projects(!), is there one that surprised you or taught you something unexpected?
Writing an impact report for a charity that worked with young people, I encountered a trustee who was a high court judge in his day job and couldn't understand why I was deploying a simple but engaging plain English style rather than the formal language and complex sentence structures he was used to in the legal world. The takeaway? The importance of managing expectations upfront (and covering all the bases, including style)!
What's your parting advice to other charity-focused freelancers?
- Keep up the CPD to ensure you understand the changing policy, operational and funding pressures faced by the charity sector over time.
- Face up to the challenges presented by AI (focus on your unique strengths, explain the creativity, originality and emotional intelligence that only human copywriters bring to the table, develop the strong client relationships that AI can't deliver).
- Recognise that the freelance world can be a bit of a rollercoaster, characterised by peaks and troughs in workload.