CREATE WINS CHARITY TIMES “PR TEAM OF THE YEAR” AWARD

Create has won the esteemed Charity Times “PR Team of the Year” award and reached the shortlist for the prestigious “Charity of the Year” award (in its categories).

Our winning citation read:

“A well-executed and carefully measured campaign demonstrating both accountability and attention to detail. Well done Create.”

A strategic approach to Communications

As we approached Create’s 10^th anniversary year in 2013, we recognised that we were not getting public recognition for our award-winning work with disadvantaged and vulnerable children and adults. So we recruited to a PR Council a group of experts who were passionate about our work and willing to give us their time and PR expertise. We realigned our in-house “marketing” function to “communications” and appointed a Communications Assistant to support our Communications Manager. We secured a £35,000 rebrand package from BrandPie, which gave us a striking new visual identity. And film maker Jo Gewirtz gave her time and skill to produce a video showcasing our work. In focusing our strategy, the PR Council set out seven key priorities:

• raise awareness of Create
• create profile opportunities for the CEO
• educate the public about the challenges faced by our participant groups
• demonstrate the need for and benefits of creative arts engagement with vulnerable participants
• showcase our participants’ achievements
• implement our new brand identity
• increase donations

Media and social media coverage have seen an impressive increase:

• High quality media coverage increased by 250% in 2014/15, with significant levels of national exposure for the first time. Key pieces included broadcasts on BBC East Midlands Today, BBC London, BBC Radio Essex, Channel 4, ITV and Sky News; and features in print/online including: The Independent on Sunday magazine (four-page front cover feature); The Guardian Online; and Huffington Post. This reflects the increased profile of Create and the CEO as influential contributors.
• Twitter interaction increased by 694% with average retweet reach up from 17,000 to 135,000 pw.

Our award application explained our key purpose:

“The people that Create works with often go unheard, yet we feel that their remarkable stories and achievements are worthy of recognition. A major part of our Communications Strategy has been to give these people a platform and raise awareness of the challenges they face in order to provoke social change. Create uses communications and PR to share their stories and how they’ve benefited from taking part in our workshops in a way that makes participants feel proud. As one of the young carers said to us during a photoshoot with the Independent:

‘I never thought that people would want to know about my life and what I’ve been through. My mum has depression but I’m hoping this will make her smile, seeing me in the magazine dancing at Sadler’s Wells. If I wasn’t a young carer, I wouldn’t have had this opportunity.’”

With an income in 2014/15 of £644,399, I am thrilled that we managed to win an award that is open to charities with an income of under £10m. Over the past year, we have reached over 32 million of the general public with our widely-circulated PR campaigns and media coverage, thanks to the dedication and creativity of our PR Council,  PR team of two and incredible participants. It is their stories that we share and their successes that continually inspire us.

Nicky Goulder, Chief Executive

In selecting the “PR Team of the Year: with an income of less than £10 million”, the Charity Times judges were looking for “excellence in charity PR, either in-house at a charity, or an agency undertaking a PR campaign on behalf of a charity. Benefits of the specific PR campaign had to be proven in real PR terms, such as extensive press and media coverage.”

This article is from 2015.

CREATE WINS CREATIVE VISION AWARD FROM KINGSTON SMITH

It is with great excitement that I can announce Create as winners of Kingston Smith’s annual Creative Vision Award!

The Creative Vision Award is dedicated to offering cutting edge promotional animations to charities, recognising the powerful impact that a film can make on a wide audience. Alongside Refuge – a charity providing specialist support to women and children experiencing domestic violence – we have been awarded a bespoke animated film to tell our story and communicate our key messages.

We have been given this opportunity at no cost – a production process usually worth £150,000 – and this will give us a creative, fun, powerful way to increase our reach and spread awareness of what Create does.

Chosen through a rigorous application process, our short film will be created by some of the UK film industry’s most exceptional rising talent. The film will incorporate cutting edge VFX and animation techniques in order to deliver Create’s key message that the creative arts can transform lives. Produced in partnership with Bournemouth University’s BFX Festival, our original animation will be unveiled in the early autumn, with everyone here extremely excited to see how the young artists choose to express our values visually.

As a creative arts charity, we promote the social, communicative and educational benefits of creativity and the arts to society, making this a particularly fitting opportunity to convey our ethos through a creative medium.     

Nicky Goulder

Co-Founder & Chief Executive

CREATE’S CHIEF EXECUTIVE IS CHARITY TIMES’S HIGHLY COMMENDED RISING CEO STAR

Last night, our Chief Executive, Nicky Goulder was recognised with the prestigious Highly Commended award in the charitytimes Rising CEO Star category. After co-founding Create in 2003, she was appointed to the new position of Chief Executive in December 2012. Since then, our income has increased by 53%, enabling more than 3,000 disdvantaged and vulnerable children and adults to take part in sustained, life-changing programmes rated successful by 98% of community partners.

The citation read:

“Nicky has led Create to its most successful year to date, directly as a result of her passion and drive to make society fairer, more caring and more inclusive. Her commitment to disadvantaged and vulnerable people has helped transform the lives of more than 27,000 participants.”

In nominating Nicky for the award, our Chairman Eddie Donaldson wrote …

“I believe that Nicky should be recognised as charitytimes Rising CEO Star because of her passion and dedication to transforming the lives of society’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable people. As Chairman, I have witnessed first-hand her drive to make Create a centre of excellence. Never complacent, she leads her team to deliver the best possible outcomes for Create’s participants and community partners. When we appointed Nicky as CEO, I knew she would bring her vast experience to the table to meet our expectations, drive the charity, deliver new and innovative programmes in the community and increase Create’s income and visibility through new initiatives. As I suspected, she has done exactly this, meeting and exceeding expectations with grace and flair.

“Our Trustees, staff, community partners and funders often comment on Nicky’s dedication, professionalism, and integrity to effect positive change. Her vision and determination to make society a better place permeate all her actions, making her an outstanding CEO. Her commitment to disadvantaged and vulnerable people has had a profound and lasting effect on her team and the lives of Create’s 27,478 participants to date, who in turn go out to change their communities. Her ambitious plans for the next three years will continue to impact the lives of individuals and communities into the future.”

In commenting on the award, Nicky said:

“I have the privilege of leading an incredible, dedicated team of staff and artists and, thanks to the transformational grant that we received from The Queen’s Trust last year, we are on target to double the reach of our work by 2016. This award feels like wonderful recognition for all we are achieving as a team to help transform the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable children and adults through our carefully tailored creative arts programmes. I would like to thank our Chairman for nominating me, the judges for acknowledging our achievements and Lloyds Bank Foundation and The Rank Foundation for so generously supporting of my post.”

Charity Times’s Rising CEO Star award recognises “a chief executive who has demonstrated dedication, professionalism and integrity throughout their short career, and who has produced an identifiably profound effect on the sector through their work and management and shows great potential going forward”.

This piece is from 2014.

OUR CHIEF EXECUTIVE IS CLARINS’ MOST DYNAMISANTE WOMAN OF THE YEAR

Our wonderful Chief Executive, Nicky Goulder, who co-founded Create in 2003, was presented with the Clarins Most Dynamisante Woman of the Year Award and a £30,000 cheque at a special lunch in her honour this Wednesday by Clarins’ executives, Robin Vincent and Olivier Courtin-Clarins. 

In his speech, Robin said: “Regardless of status, background, income or domestic challenges, you have built confidence, opened doors and horizons, and uplifted troubled children to see new perspectives and confront new opportunities positively.  Congratulations!  You have joined a special group of exceptional people around the world – Clarins Most Dynamisante Women.”  The news was revealed in The Mail on Sunday’s You Magazine.

Kristina Nilles, Create’s Development Director writes …

“I nominated Nicky for this award because it will be ten years next month since her vision for the charity became reality and I wanted her to get the recognition she deserves in this celebratory year.  Nicky captures the essence of the award.

She is the most dynamic and inspiring boss I have ever had, she leads by example and she encourages all of us to thrive through her positive reinforcement, ambitious (yet achievable) targets and open door policy.  Her enthusiasm is infectious and motivates our team, artists, participants and community partners to strive for excellence in everything they do.  She has an incredible way of persuading people to help the charity “for love” – who else could have twisted the arm of Bonhams’ Chairman to conduct two charity auctions every year or a Hollywood actress to visit a group of young carers performing a short play they had created!

I have felt honoured to work alongside Nicky since joining the Create team eighteen months ago and am grateful for the many lessons I have learnt from her positive, giving and thankful approach to life.  Never before have I met someone who brightens others’ days in the way Nicky can: I have seen her engage in conversation with an older woman at a bus stop; help a young offender create artwork for his child (despite readily admitting to me that art is not her greatest area of expertise!); assist a young carer make a bracelet in time for Mother’s Day; sit with a parent carer after an event listening to his problems; and she always thanks the TFL bus driver at the end of her journey!  I find it refreshing and inspiring to witness acts of kindness on a daily basis.  Nicky’s vision and determination to make society a better place permeates all her actions and in turn not only affects the lives of the 25,352 children and adults that Create has already had the privilege of working with but hundreds if not thousands more.

Nicky is always modest about her achievements and truly deserves this award.  It is wonderful to see her receive such amazing recognition for the work that she has done over the past ten years.”

Clarins Most Dynamisante Woman of the Year Award recognises the action and commitment of inspirational British women who work tirelessly to help underprivileged or sick children across the globe.  Create will be using the £30,000 award to take sensory music residencies to 400+ children at six special schools over the coming year.

This article is from 2013.

ART:SPACE, PROJECT FOR YOUNG CARERS, RECOGNISED WITH PRESTIGIOUS AWARD

Last Thursday, I attended Business in the Community’s (BITC) South East Responsible Awards Gala Dinner as a guest of our long-term corporate partner, British Land.  Indeed, British Land supported our first ever project Shake an Egg on 16 July 2003, just nine days after my vision for the charity became a reality, and we have worked in partnership ever since.

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary this weekend, what could be more fitting than such an exceptional, community focused company to win BITC’s South East Local Impact Award, Building Stronger Communities.  Since 2009, British Land has committed £150,000 to our art:space project for young carers, which has benefited 578 of these particularly isolated and vulnerable young people.

On winning the award, Joanne Hammond, British Land’s Charity and Volunteer Executive said, “We are absolutely delighted to win this award and this is a tribute to Create and all the carers who have demonstrated the impact of the arts in engaging with people and communities in a positive and fulfilling way.”

Nicky Goulder, Chief Executive