What matters the most to charity content teams

Different organisations, same challenges

We used an unconference framework to co-design the agenda together, asking everyone:

• what they wanted to learn more about or needed help with
• what they felt they could share with others

Topics we landed on for the day

• How to start and embed a content strategy
• Measurement and KPIs
• Good content design
• Buy-in
• AI and content
• Making content audience-centred 

For each session, we facilitated a conversation about people’s perspectives on the topic, including what’s been working for them and how they can improve through sharing advice with each other.

1. How to start and embed a content strategy

This is where we started discussing that while it’s unique to every organisation, a content strategy needs to be a living tool and not a dry document. 

Key elements of a content strategy could include:

• how to move from reactive to proactive content 
• how to plan, including establishing a content roadmap and shared calendars 
• validating ideas with user insight 
• prioritising workflow 
• creating a content audit process that sets out how to retire, reuse and redevelop content 

Focusing on how to build trust between content teams and others across an organisation is key to success, and having a strong narrative around what a content strategy is and why it’s needed is essential to gaining momentum. 

Everyone agreed one of the signs of successful content strategy integration is content not being an afterthought but instead helping to shape decisions and project direction. 

2. Measurement and KPIs

We started the conversations discussing challenges with measurement including:

• inconsistent website and cross-channel reporting 
• determining the ROI of large-scale campaigns where KPIs are tracked but not all outcomes are measurable
• embedding measurement into roles and processes so it’s not ad-hoc
• translating audience insight from quantitative and qualitative insight into content design 

Moving beyond the standard platform metrics is critical, as this means exploring the best or most meaningful engagement and impact metrics for the project, content or strategy in hand. 

Practical ideas content teams can try

• Share access to analytics to help everyone feel ownership of the results as well as the project delivery.
• Understand that different teams and projects will see success and impact differently. Talk to them individually about what’s important to them.
• Find out what’s useful to track for other teams and make sure the correct key events are set up in GA4.
• Look into GA4’s new ‘engagement rate’ metric as a more meaningful way to see whether content is resonating, compared to just page views.
• Hold monthly cross-team meetings to share results.
• Don’t just think about the obvious measurement points like conversions, donations and contacts. Think about measuring whether people appreciated and understood the content, perhaps with a “Did you find this useful?” question.

3. Good content design 

The conversation focused on what makes good content design, including:

• plain language 
• authentic tone of voice
• sounding like a human
• considering audience needs like non-native speakers, expert terminology 
• reducing the steps in user journeys
• designing for LLMs to ensure content findability
• moving away from broadcast-to-engagement content 
• bringing in participant-led content (users/employees)

We kept coming back to the relationship between good content and accessibility, and how it’s possible to deliver both at the same time: “simplifying doesn’t mean dumbing down.”

Content design as a discipline was defined as ‘curation’, with paired writing and collaboration being at the heart of effective processes. Some teams use a content strategy menu to map the stages of the content design process for stakeholders. This is key to others not seeing content designers as “just the word fairy.”

4) Buy-in 

The discussion started by sharing what good buy-in for content strategy looks like to everyone.

Ideas for good buy-in

• Resource: having the right size of content team and budget to meet organisational goals.
• Leadership knowledge: senior stakeholders understand content strategy objectives and processes.
• Advocates: leaders influence good content strategy practice, and call out where it’s not working well for the team or the organisation.
• Trust in the content team: expertise and skills are valued and teams across the organisation feel comfortable their content needs will be met by a capable team.
• Curiosity: people taking the time to understand the why.
• Co-creation: content teams are not an afterthought and instead shape projects not just pure delivery.
• Creative development: acknowledge the time and headspace needed to shape content strategies and creative ideas.
• Pride: everyone feels happy and excited about what has been created, not just the content owner or the project team. 

It’s fair to say that while some teams are doing well against some of these areas, no one team had nailed all of them and everyone acknowledged each of these steps are significant in their own right. 

Steps to increase buy-in that have helped

• Show, don’t tell: demonstrate the value of changing a process e.g. bringing a content team early, instead of complaining you’re not in the meetings.
• Be open: hold lunch and learn sessions on content strategy, focusing on a particular topic or project.
• Collaborate: create communities of practice for content that provide a space for people to ask ‘the stupid question’ and learn about strategic content processes.
• Brand and content champions: create or reinvigorate existing brand champions in teams to have a broader role around steering content decisions, not just policing use of brand.
• Pick the hardest place: start with the people who are the most resistant and take time to understand what they need and why, which will lead to building their buy-in.

5) Adapting to artificial intelligence and search shifts

The most savvy of our content teams are using the change in AI search behaviours as a way to drive improvements in broader content governance. When a trustee sees a 15-year-old PDF being referenced in an answer by Google they sit up and take notice. From here they’re much more likely to invest in a content capability that retires content efficiently. 

The rise of artificial intelligence search tools and overviews is still creating visible drops in website traffic. Teams are finding it difficult to track visibility because traditional data is harder to find. This shift means content governance and maintaining a verified source of truth are more important than ever.

On the production side, tools can be utilised to run efficiency checks based on internal guidelines. However, teams must remember the human user remains the primary audience. Authenticity is crucial, which means focusing on unique stories and deep context that a robot can not replicate.

6) Using audience insight 

Teams reflected on some of the challenges with embedded user insight, including the perception of research and how it shapes content good practice and decision making. 

Key takeaways people shared

• The content strategy needs to include an intentional shift from broadcast to user centricity. It should be driven by deciding what tasks do audiences want to be doing.
• Encourage stakeholders to watch recordings of usability testing to show them how and where their audiences are stumbling on the content.
• Acknowledge where you’re using internal language e.g fundraising types, and re-write with your users in mind.
• Bring in external expertise where needed to support the content team with user research or training, with a focus on upskilling not taking over.

Conclusion

We’d love to hear if anyone tries out any of these steps in their organisation and how they land, and we’d also be happy to chat through these more from our experiences creating and rolling out content strategies. Please get in touch!

Thanks for joining us

Huge thanks to everyone who joined us for the unconference!

Sarah Kingsmill (Battersea), Dan Thurman (Felix), Torie Ross (Felix), Charlotte Young (GOSH Charity), Nicola Stebbing (GOSH Charity), Jonny Keyworth (Homeless Link), Eve Coffey (Homeless Link), Megan Price (King’s Fund), Candace Chan (NCVO), Miriam Zendle (NHS Alliance), Lily Walsworth (Our Future Health), Caitlin Pearce (Parkinson’s UK), Ellie Wilson (Parkinson’s UK), Rory Stamp (RNLI), Jo Storer (Sightsavers), Suzie Boswell (Sightsavers), Zoe Hanson (The B Team), Graeme Manuel-Jones (Working Animals International), Abi Payne-Humphries (Working Animals International)

And very special thank you to the wonderful team at Calthorpe Community Garden for looking after us on the day - we loved being in your beautiful, grounding, sun-filled space. 

Get in touch

This unconference brought together the two cohorts of our content strategy community of practice, which has been running for a year now. If you work in a content team within a charity or not-for-profit organisation and want to join, please contact Yas.