How can I help you?
With 15+ years experience successfully delivering advocacy, communications and engagement programmes across the United Nations (UN), UK Government, philanthropy and UK-based charities, I bring unparalleled experience in:
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Setting up communications and engagement functions from scratch identifying priority need and corresponding activity
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Identifying ways to increase your impact through assessing existing strategies and plans
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Developing communications to drive cut-through for your advocacy work targeting national and international policy and decision makers
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Facilitating workshops with wide ranging stakeholders to understand their perceptions, needs and behaviours associated with your cause
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Establishing a suite of best practice communications and engagement tools including messaging guides, risk management and evaluation matrices
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Building confidence and capability in your team to deliver best practice communications and engagement
My Services
Rapid Reviews
Undertaking desk research, interviews and /or workshops to assess existing communications and engagement plans including:
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Comms, engagement and advocacy plans
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Partnership strategies
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Theories of change
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Audience segmentation
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Stakeholder maps
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Evaluation approaches
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Team skills
Skills Strengthening
Delivering and facilitating capability build workshops on a range of communications and engagement areas including:
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Defining your vision & mission
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Campaign planning
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Crisis communications
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Problem (re)framing
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Stakeholder influence mapping
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Evaluation and metrics
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Communications leadership
Tool Development
Developing key tools for strategic communications and engagement activity including:
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Comms and engagement strategies and plans
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Narrative and key messages
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Copywriting support across all medium from long-form reports to LinkedIn posts
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Audience segmentation
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Team skills mapping
Who do I work with?
Working with social-minded organisations
If you work in an organisation that has a mission to make people’s lives better, it’s likely we’re a good fit.
I work best with:
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Social impact and communication agencies
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Government departments and arm’s length bodies
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UN agencies, iNGOs and grassroot civil society organisations
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Charities and NGOs
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Philanthropic organisations
Why work with me?
I have experience through my freelance and previous career delivering high-impact communications and engagement activity.
Some highlights include:
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UNICEF: Establishing a never-before used mechanism with UNICEF to send stay safe messages to those in the path of Hurricanes Maria, Irma and Jose that was accessed by 100,000 people within 72 hours
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UNICEF: Developing the #1000DaysOfLove award winning multi-country campaign promoting the rights of children with disabilities, based on those impacted by Zika Virus
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SSAFA, The Armed Forces Charity: Delivering a campaign to de-stigmatise looking for welfare support aimed at ex-service personal from 1980s, focusing on those who are now HGV drivers exposed to long hours alone.
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Tower Hamlets College: Shifting open days for sixth form recruitment from being at the college to taster sessions happening across the community at markets, local festivals and family fun days.
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UK Cabinet Office: Working with the (very sadly now ex-) transitional Government of Sudan to establish a communications mechanism post 2019 Revolution
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Wellcome: Leading the development of the AMR (antimicrobial resistance) Messaging Guide in partnership with UN Foundation to support Wellcome's policy objectives at the UN General Assembly in 2024
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NHS England/DHSC: Supporting the set-up of the Health Data Research Service, a government company that will streamline access to health data for research across the UK, including its communications and engagement function
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Action for Global Health: Defining audience segments and pen portraits to strengthen advocacy work, leading to new communications approaches
What My Clients Say
"Vicky was outstanding to work with - highly collaborative, generous with her time, and a true team player who elevated everyone around her. She has a strong instinct for context and big picture thinking, alongside the technical capability to turn complex challenges into clear, well-judged outputs tailored to the audience. As a project leader, she combines rigour with warmth, following briefs precisely while constructively challenging thinking in ways that consistently strengthen the work. Her leadership style is confident, thoughtful and trusted; the kind that makes teams and outcomes better."
Dominique Lemon, Director, Freuds+
"Vicky is a breath of fresh air in any team. Immensely capable and practical, she fits into new teams with ease and has a knack for quickly spotting blockers and opportunities, and calmly tackling the former and taking advantage of the latter. Vicky is able to quickly understand a complex brief and to see how that fits into a wider strategic picture. She is an asset to any area where there is ambiguity and complexity and was an incredibly valued member of the team."
Lorna Branton, Head of Strategy, Data for Research and Development Programme, NHS England
"Action for Global Health commissioned Vicky to help us understand which segments of the UK public we should target in our campaigns and media work in order to achieve our wider advocacy goals. The working relationship was a joy; Vicky was highly responsive, clear in communication and laser focused on achieving hte outputs in a lean and efficient manner. Through the pen portraits Vicky delivered, we have already made inroads into strengthening the public mandate for global health amid a backdrop of shrinking aid and geopolitical pressures."
Cameron Boyle, Senior Digital Campaigns and Media Advisor, Action for Global Health
Get in touch
I'm always keen to have coffees with interesting people... ideally in person, but when geography or life gets in the way online is good too.
Whether you have a comms niggle or are looking to completely overhaul your engagement strategy, I'd be happy to have a chat to see how we can help.
Please fill out the form below.