Powerful podcasts. Frontline stories that win you support.

If you’ve no budget or time for formal PR, there’s another way to raise your profile.

Capture the first-hand experiences of the people you work with. Your colleagues, volunteers and people who use your services.

Their personal stories will bring to life the value of your organisation.

Personal stories might include:

• why a volunteer is giving their precious spare time to work with you
• why someone who needed your support finally came forward
• why you decided to work long hours in this sector.

These are ‘untold stories’. They’re waiting to be revealed with a few open questions. (My post about DIY Adverts gives you tips on how to find, tell and put frontline stories to good use.)

The story behind Untold Stories.

‘Untold Stories’ is a project I supervise as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Sussex’s School of Media, Film and Music.

Students team up with local charities, interviewing their volunteers and the families they support. The students then turn these frontline stories into audio podcasts.

It’s win win. The students get to work in the ‘real world’ and prove it on their CV. Charities get a taste of working with the media.

Both can use the podcast to promote what they do to potential employers, funding bodies or volunteers.

Have a listen and see what you think.

Untold Story 1: ‘It’s switch off time for me. It’s a real break.”

Fun In Action for Children offers one-to-one befriending support to children who are growing up in lone parent families in Brighton and Hove.

This podcast is like a fly-on-the-wall snapshot. Six year-old Cinnamon and her befriender Tanya are talking about their friendship, and how it could last for a ‘trillion years!’

This prodcast’s produced by Sophie Turton; the music’s composed by Eugene McCloskey.

Untold Story 2: ‘Do you think mum should be doing this?’

The second story is told by Liz, a volunteer for Sussex Nightstop. The charity supports young homeless people across Brighton, Hove and West Sussex. Volunteer hosts offer up their spare rooms to youngsters who need accommodation. Some volunteers do it one night at a time; others offer longer ‘placements’. Liz is one of the volunteer hosts.

This podcast’s produced by Eugene McCloskey.

Thanks to the support of Dr Monika Metykova and the School of Media, Film and Music, the project is now in its second year. You can find out more about Untold Stories here