Communications strategy 2017-2021

1. Overview

Excellent communication is fundamental in achieving our vision, ambition and strategic aims.
Since our merger we have undertaken a journey to establish our purpose as an organisation
and then to ensure that this purpose is aligned through our vision and new organisational
strategy and business plan.

This strategy outlines communications priorities in a first phase, from now until 2018, with a
second phase running from 2019-20. The overall strategy will be updated in 2020-21 to take
into account organisational, political, social and economic changes at that point.

The objectives of the Communications strategy are to:

Increase our profile with the key audiences who will help us deliver our
organisational strategy

Ensure that everyone recognises the value of what St Mungos does and how
we work to achieve our organisational goals

Ensure staff are informed, engaged and empowered and therefore deliver
effective services which support our clients to rebuild their lives.

2. Background

St Mungos Communications strategy of 2010-13 was ambitious looking to achieve more

brand recognition, invest in more resources (staff and technology) and improve internal
communications in line with a growth plan moving beyond London. This investment was not
allocated as anticipated, although in 2013-14 the Board agreed investment to increase our
profile alongside the establishment of our campaigning activity.

Our merger in April 2014 meant a period of significant change and adjustment for the
Communications team as posts and roles were absorbed and systems aligned. The team
budget has been reduced as part of the organisations commitment to manage central
overheads.

Our communication systems (website and intranet) are in need to considerable updating.
With external support we are developing a detailed specification for a new website and will
be seeking investment for this. The internal communications team is also reviewing options
for a replacement for our intranet the old one is no longer fit for purpose.

With a new brand, vision and strategy in place it is time to be ambitious and raise our game.
This Communications strategy aims to successfully support the organisational strategy and
significantly enhance our profile, awareness of our St Mungos brand (who we are and what
we do) and staff engagement and pride within the next five years.

3. Communications achievements

Despite significant change, the Communications team has been effective and focussed. In
Press and PR, we achieved a stretch media target of 1,500 media mentions during 2015-16
up from 1,200 the year before. This included Guardian, Telegraph, Independent and Times
print and online stories about our role in helping rough sleepers; Grazia magazine, Womans
Hour and local media coverage about how were helping rebuild lives; and press and PR on
campaigning such as our Stop the Scandal and Homeless Health Matters campaigns.
We also reached and influenced more audiences through social media. We now have 19.7k
Twitter followers, compared with 15.6k in July 2015, and 6,000 Facebook supporters.

We transitioned to a new name and new branding in January 2016. As well as producing
traditional materials such as Annual Reviews and organisational and service leaflets, we
have created more infographics and storyvines on social media in order to present our
information in a more accessible way to a wider range of audiences.

In internal communications, from early 2015, we have provided materials to support senior
staff in their regular visits to team meetings. We also worked with colleagues in Learning and
Development to deliver organisational strategy consultation events in autumn 2015, which
were attended by around 1,000 staff members and received positive feedback.

Now we are clear on our direction as an organisation, the team is keen to push ahead and to
be ambitious about what they can achieve in future.

4. External challenges

There are specific changes which relate to communications. Digital systems are becoming
more fundamental to how we work with, and for, our clients, staff, stakeholders, supporters
and the public. The media world is now 24 hours, with news as likely to break on Twitter as
on a mainstream media channel, and a different range of influential media to work with and
respond to. This raises different risks as well as opportunities.

As a charity and a housing association, we also have a fundamental undertaking to be

transparent, accountable and aspire to the best practice possible in terms of governance
and communicate this well to respective audiences. This is at a time when the fundraising is
seeking to reclaim public trust and where charities can no longer assume a lack of criticism.

While Crisis and Shelter remain the most well-known national homelessness organisations,
there has been a rise in ground up initiatives, sometimes crowdfunded, and perceived as
more local, social and more directly impactful for those sleeping rough. This has an effect on
how we work locally and how we talk about ourselves, so as not to be perceived as a big
London organisation swooping in but instead as an organisation focussed on solutions and
willing to explore innovation and new thinking to get people they help they need.

5. Developing the Communications strategy

As well as input from the team we consulted senior managers, reviewed feedback from the
2015 staff survey and team meetings and used some internal research. We also asked a
group of colleagues what a failed Comms strategy would look like:
No one knows who we are, what we do, why they should support us, how and who to
contact
If we still have sub groups and people dont feel part of the whole
If clients and staff cant articulate what we do and how we do it, the benefits of our
services and how they feel a part of it with clients identifying with us, a common
understanding of what we do
If we didnt have an ability to have online conversations have active rather than
passive conversations
If projects dont have a clear vision about their identity which reflects that of the
organisation
We used this information to inform our thinking and planning and will seek further feedback
as we set future targets and develop our planning.
 6. Strategy objectives and tasks

The objectives are linked to the Organisational Strategy and the 5 Is. They are underpinned
by tasks that relate to the areas that make up our communications and marketing function.

Our objectives:

1. Increase our profile with the key audiences who will help us deliver our organisational
strategy
2. Ensure that everyone recognises the value of what St Mungos does and how we
work to achieve our organisational goals
3. Ensure staff are informed, engaged and empowered and therefore deliver effective
services which support our clients to rebuild their lives.

Objective 1. Increase our profile with the key audiences who will help us deliver our
organisational strategy

We will work to increase our profile and brand awareness among key audiences and in support of
colleagues seeking to achieve their objectives eg:

1.1 The Fundraising objective is to grow net income by 2m to reach 5.5m a year by 2020, with gross
income at 10m.

We will work with Fundraising colleagues to focus on reaching and raising our profile with their key
audiences via the web, social media and digital activity as well as producing high quality marketing
materials, and excellent PR responses linked to their main projects.

1.2 In support of the Growth Strategy objectives, and matrix lead responsibilities of interconnecting
locally and providing thought leadership nationally, we will work with them to increase our profile with
the key audience of commissioners in areas where we currently work and in potential target growth
areas.

We will also support innovative partnerships and advise on thought leader profile and opportunities
through press and PR.

1.3 The Influencing strategy sets out its goal of How we will communicate to influence

We will make sure when we communicate our influencing/campaigning messages we present the
issues as homeless people, and our clients in particular, experience them. We will tell stories that
reflect their real experiences.
Over the next three years we will seek to work even more effectively to influence relevant media
which can be key to effective campaigning and in turn our influencing agenda. We will work closely
with the media team and communications staff so that we can comment on stories that are vehicles for
our messaging, ensuring that our communications colleagues are involved earlier and integrally in our
campaign planning to ensure the stories we tell are compelling and presented in a visually arresting
way.
We will provide regular and timely online updates for supporters, with a clear and current profile on our
website which is a major tool for attracting and communicating with campaigners and for informing
other interested parties on the issues.
We will use social media tools to enhance our influencing and campaigning profile such as Twitter,
Facebook and YouTube. We will seek to improve our digital campaigning so that we are at the
forefront of social communication development and use it effectively to achieve our desired change.
We will ensure that internal communications encourage staff, clients and volunteers to participate in
the campaign and we will measure their participation.
We will communicate the opportunities that campaigns can offer for all stakeholders, including
commissioners of services via existing and new communication opportunities managed by the
communications teams.

We will work closely with Campaign, Policy and Public Affairs colleagues and others in support of this
Influencing Strategy goal.
Objective 2. Ensure that everyone recognises the value of what St Mungos does and
how we work to achieve our organisational goals

2.1 We want the St Mungos brand to be resolutely in line with our values empowering,
creative, committed, accountable and inclusive.

We will create materials that best suit the objective of ensuring that all who know St Mungos
recognise the value of our work and how we demonstrably help end homelessness and
rebuild lives.

These will include external and internal materials offline and electronic, visual and written
so that our staff, clients and supporters can easily describe what we do and how we do it,
and ideally speak highly of both, advocate for us.

We will do so in partnership with our clients and interconnecting professionally with external
partners as we work to achieve our organisational goals.

We will link in with the People Strategys aim of helping to influence and shape the
effectiveness of organisations working with homeless and other vulnerable people and the
Organisational Excellence and Client Involvement Strategies focusing on sharing good
practice and involving clients.

2.2 The Fundraising Strategy aims to grow affinity for our cause and our organisation with
existing and new supporters and ensure we are worthy of our donors trust.

We will work with colleagues to support them to achieve the highest professional standards
in our fundraising with clear, targeted messages delivered in the most user friendly,
accessible ways to those who support us or who are potential supporters.

That will include providing advice and guidance on marketing materials, as well as expert
assistance in terms of design, photography, event management, digital and social media
help.

2.3 The Growth Strategy aims for us to grow into new areas, in the South, South West and
potentially into the Midlands.

We will support colleagues in the New Business team and those responsible for preparing
bids to have the best materials needed for a successful tender, in line with the organisational
goals, creatively and inclusively developed.

We will develop our regional marketing and PR activities as appropriate in line with Growth
needs.

Objective 3. Ensure staff are informed, engaged and empowered and therefore deliver
effective services which support our clients to rebuild their lives.

3.1 The People Strategy sets out objectives under the themes of resourcing, capability,
reward, unity wellbeing, accountability and influencing.

We will support colleagues with their objectives, including to:

* increase staff engagement from 74% in next staff engagement survey;
* ensure our vision, mission and values are embedded across the organisation and staff are
able to demonstrate our values in their work;
* break down silos and promoting a culture of mutual respect, diversity and inclusion in the
workplace and a positive work-life balance.
We will do this by through a programme of Internal Comms (Change) over an initial year,
during which we will improve channels and processes. We will then review, update and
innovate further once changes are in place and their impact has been measured.

This will include use of emails, visual posters and face to face meetings, as well as annual
staff conference events, and innovative ways to reward and recognise staff for achievements
that help us fulfil our organisational goals.

A major change project will be the update of an intranet system to better facilitate more
interactive, informed and engaged discussion about what we do and how we do it so that
staff are more able to share good practice for the benefit of our clients.

3.2 The Client Involvement Strategy will set out how best we involve clients to achieve our
organisational goals.

We will support colleagues to empower staff to deliver this strategy and involve clients
ourselves in the process.

7. Investment to support the communications strategy

In 2016-17 the Communications budget was reduced by 10% to contribute to the

organisational target of reducing central costs. This did not require any redundancies but it
did mean putting a planned new position to support our digital strategy on hold and reducing
the amount we have to spend to support increasing our profile.

During 2016-17 we will make the case for investment into a new website and new intranet.
Both the current systems are no longer fit for purpose and updating and maintaining them
takes substantial amounts of staff time. We expect replacement systems to be less labour
intensive on a day to day basis though co-ordination of our internal comms and digital
approaches is likely to be an ongoing requirement, as we fulfil the priorities in the strategy.
We will have a fully developed business case for this investment by the end of quarter 2 of
16-17.

Our in-house graphic designer is at capacity and in order to support ongoing requests from
new services, existing services, fundraising, campaigning etc. we may either have to a)
increase the resources to this through additional staffing or b) out-sourcing work: both
options would necessitate further expenditure.

Further, concentrated service growth in areas outside London over the course of the strategy
may also result in a review of the need for further communications support. The Bristol based
Communications officer has only been in post since early 2016-17 however,
communications support is a key element in engaging local partners, commissioners, and
supporters.

8. Next steps

This includes work to benchmark our current position and incorporate feedback from external
stakeholders. We have access to the results of the survey of our individual supporters,
volunteers and campaigners carried out by the fundraising team which has some useful
insights into the communications preferences of those audiences. This final strategy is
accompanied by a more detailed work plan and KPIs (below, Appendix 1) that will enable us
to track our progress.

Rebecca Sycamore
Executive Director of Fundraising and Communications
Appendix 1

The Communications team works across three functions. Each team will work towards
the three objectives in the following ways.

Communications and Marketing (including brand, content and channels e.g. website,
publications)

Top level priorities:

1. Increase brand awareness
2. Be more audience centric
3. Improve integration with other teams and systems

In more detail:
We want to be better known to key audiences who can support future organisational
growth, fundraising goals and our ability to influence policy. By 2021 we will have a
significantly higher profile in the areas where we are delivering services.
By 2017 we will be working in a more integrated way with PPAR, Fundraising and
Campaigns particularly - as well as our services - to produce consistent messages
and content within our brand guidelines.
By 2017 we will improve online marketing through a new website which is modern,
clear and compelling and is fit for purpose for its key audiences.
Overall, we will achieve significant increase in actions in response to our
communications that is, people carrying out an end action (getting in touch, sharing
information, donating, campaigning, volunteering).
In 2017 we will have a high quality range of photographic material that best suits the
organisations needs.
By 2018 we will have significantly increased our digital output and improved our
storytelling to get our key messages across in innovative ways.
By 2019, as the organisational seeks to develop partnerships and be more creative,
we will be driven much more by data and audience insight, and be able to see how
our brand has improved with key audiences.

Underpinning all of the content we produce will be the experiences of our clients, whether in
our visual identity, the stories we tell, or the stats we produce to demonstrate our impact.
They will be involved in our photography, videos, blogs and more.

Press and PR

Top level priorities:

1. Build stronger relationships with the media and with celebrities and VIPs
2. Control the airwaves
3. Create more regional Communications hubs and resources

In more detail:
By 2017-8, we will improve systems for focusing on key contacts, contacting and
pitching to target media, and measuring and monitor our coverage and improving
relationships.
By 2018-19 we will progress towards more face to face, briefing on upcoming stories
and visits projects and services and hearing from our clients, face to face.
We will also seek to show our expertise to myth bust and educate mainstream and
online media about homelessness.
Develop and implement a broadcast strategy for outreach teams so our outreach
leads are able to speak eloquently and effectively about our work, especially on TV
and radio at key times (cold weather, Christmas, report publications).
 By 2017-18 we will develop a celebrity strategy in consultation with key teams such
as Fundraising. During years two to five we will seek to secure further celebrity or VIP
involvement regionally. This will be linked with our fundraising plans, our 50th
anniversary and other key opportunities.
By 2019, thinking more creatively about mainstream and online airwaves and the
kind of interviews, soundbites, radio and TV packages people are watching and how
we can be providing that content in the right way at the right time.
We will support new and existing local and regional partnerships by providing strong
press and PR support. This will include template materials, developing
communication champions (if not an actual role) and setting clear regional targets for
press, PR, marketing and internal communications.

There are some acknowledged challenges that come with raising our media profile. We are
always mindful of our relationships with commissioners, however that should not prevent us
from being able to demonstrate our real expertise in this area. In fact in many cases we are
able to collaborate with local authorities to highlight how all parties are working together to
tackle homelessness.

St Mungos will be 50 in 2019 and we need to plan how to mark that in an ambitious way
that very much involves our clients and former clients but which also speaks to our ambition.
This also needs to link with fundraising plans including for a major appeal that will cover the
period of our 50th anniversary.

Internal Communications

Top level priorities:

1. Keeping staff and volunteers informed
2. Improving staff and volunteer engagement
3. Giving staff and volunteers a voice
4. Enabling better communications with, and for, clients

In more detail:
During 2016 we are focusing on:
improving organisational communications by building a strong narrative behind our
communications and a culture of trust through transparency and accuracy.
Improving communications between teams better systems to find out about the work of
other teams e.g. information about projects, contact details.
embedding our Organisational Strategy in the minds of our staff and volunteers; ensuring
staff are aware of new values and how we define them.
embed a feedback loop throughout our internal comms to reassure people they are being
listened to, are aware of change and the reasons for it.
Reviewing and improving how we communicate with clients and ways to innovate,
improve and involve our clients more in these communications.
By the end of 2017-18
Have a new intranet which meets the needs of the organisation, its staff and
volunteers.
Be consulting stakeholders as we develop the new system (before, during and after)
to ensure that a change project that has an impact across the organisation results in
improvements and is seen by those who use it as being successful

We now have an Internal Communications Manager for a fixed term of 18 months. This
added capacity at senior level, will enable us to take a refreshed look at our internal comms
strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and make the changes needed in order to ensure
we progress in this area. We have 74% staff engagement and a good range of qualitative
and quantitative feedback about internal comms. We want staff to be proud of who we are
and what we do; to stay, strive and share even more effectively towards our vision and
ambition.

Overall, we will be in a position to measure success through improved scores in the next
biannual staff survey as well as from feedback collected through other staff engagement
processes.

While clients are the final element in this Communications strategy, their positive experience
with us will underpin how much we can achieve our goals as without their stories of how we
made a difference, helped end their homelessness and rebuild their lives, we have no
evidence of true impact of our work.

Appendix 2 - KPIs
Objective KPIs

Increase our profile with
the key audiences who
will help us deliver our
organisational strategy
Increased awareness of our work among key audiences
through benchmark surveys of commissioners, influencers
and sector partners
Increased media coverage, highlighting positive work
around ending homelessness and rebuilding lives, and
specifically reversing the rise in rough sleeping (from 1,500
in 15-16 to 1,800 in 2017-18 and rising)
Positive feedback from internal colleagues about profile
which has enabled us to meet our organisational objectives
More donor income and awareness linked to profile raising
campaigns
Search volume from 8,500 (searches of St Mungo's) to
10,000 per month on our website.
SEO rankings and overall visits to the website up from c 35k
per month to 40k per month

Ensure that everyone
who knows us is proud
of what we do and how
we work to achieve our
organisational goals
Improved donor retention and fundraising income growth
Contracts won in new areas based on knowledge of our expertise
and reputation
Evidence of external recognition of our thought leadership and
innovation eg through awards, donor feedback
Positive feedback on new website and more conversions from
visits (donate, volunteer, campaign).
Integrated campaigns across FR, Campaigns, PPAR showing
evidence of clear topline messaging making an impact
Creating a Photo Library which visually demonstrates our values
At least one award for our Marketing/Press&PR/IC work

Ensure staff are
informed, engaged and
empowered and
therefore deliver
effective services which
support our clients to
rebuild their lives.
Increased staff engagement from 74% to 78% in next staff
engagement survey
Better ratings in the Central Services satisfaction survey about internal
communications channels
Staff easily able to demonstrate our values in their work in IIP, IIV or
other excellence assessments but also to clients
Increased client satisfaction as a result of staff delivering more
effective services
Positive reaction to new intranet and IC changes during 2017-19