Communications

My career focus since 2015 has been digital communications and marketing. Since then I’ve worked on I’ve worked a variety of roles in different sectors, including…

Recruitment
Student Union
Charity
Video game industry
Grassroots music

On this page, I’ve decided to give a case study from my personal favourite communications position – working at spinal cord injury charity Back Up. Hopefully this page will give some great examples of my comms and creative skillset!

Back Up is a charity dedicated to helping people affected by spinal cord injury to get the most out of life.

I worked there as an in-house member of staff between 2018 and 2025 – excluding a sojourn in 2022 where I worked in the video game industry for a year (although I still volunteered with Back Up at the time). The fact I went back to Back Up after that shows how important their mission was, and still is, to me.

There’s me on the right of the photo. The one wearing orange!

I started out at Back Up as a Communications Assistant, before being promoted to the role of Communications and Marketing Coordinator. One of the things I loved about this job was the diverse experiences it gave me. I had the chance to support and lead on a wide range of communications projects. I left in April 2025 to focus on building my profile as an artist and musician, but communications is still a major part of what I do! I wouldn’t be able to do what I do now without my communications experience.

On this page I’ve documented some of the work I was a part of at Back Up, so I can showcase the skills I gained from working at this fab charity.

One of my main duties at Back Up was managing the charity’s social media accounts. This included writing, designing assets for, and scheduling daily posts on Hootsuite, as well as daily moderation of the charity’s Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles.

Back Up has a fantastic and super engaged online community – and I am proud that I was part of fostering that from 2018 – 2025.

At Back Up, I managed to continuously grow the charity’s online following on social media, reaching new audiences while engaging already established followers. I know this because I was also responsible for tracking social engagement for Back Up’s KPIs, and each month we saw consistent growth in followers.

Case studies and storytelling

One of my favourite parts of working in communications is having the chance to tell stories. At Back Up, I had the opportunity to bring the charity’s work to life by interviewing case studies.

I would interview and write up a blog from a minimum of two former Back Up service users a month. I’d host these stories on the Back Up website, where they’d be used for a variety of purposes – social media, report documents, fundraising materials and in the monthly e-newsletter to give a few examples! Overall, they helped showcase how Back Up was transforming lives.

Here’s a few links to some of the top stories I wrote during my time at Back Up:
Eva’s story: Being a young volunteer
Katy’s story: Fresh opportunities after spinal cord injury
Pete’s story: Thriving on our ski karting course

Email

As mentioned above, the blogs I wrote were featured in Back Up’s monthly e-newsletter.

This was a big job – it meant that every month I would lead on copywriting, editing, designing, and sending a mass mailout on Mailchimp to an audience of over 15,000 sign-ups. My attention to detail needed to be spot on, GDPR had to be adhered to, and design and layout needed to remain on-brand.

Why was this monthly newsletter important? It allowed us to send an engaged audience essential updates about the charity. I packed every newsletter with stories from service users, opportunities for fundraisers to get involved, a calendar of events, and a regular update from the charity’s CEO. After each newsletter went out, I also had the chance to review and log analytics (link clicks, opens, unsubs) to influence strategic decisions on future mailouts.

During my time leading on this project, we saw some great results. We averaged an open rate of 30%, and a click through rate of 2%, meeting the industry standard for charity sector newsletters.

Video, print, and design

I’m an excellent all-rounder when it comes to the Adobe creative suite – especially when it comes to Premiere Pro, Photoshop, InDesign, and After Effects!

These skills came in useful during my time at Back Up. Here’s a few examples of what I had the chance to produce…

Video content hosted on the charity’s YouTube channel, done by myself in-house and in collaboration with external freelancers. This included podcast clips, user-generated content, animations, fundraising videos, and event montages.

Print documents including the charity’s annual Impact Report, which showcased how the organisation had transformed lives across the past financial year.

I was heavily involved in making this from start to finish. I interviewed case studies and wrote up their articles, coordinated with photographers to organise photoshoots, designed infographic pages, and worked with our external design company to assemble and print the final product. Here’s some examples I worked on between 2018 – 2025 (the archive section of the page only!)

Designing for web – managing the CMS platform on WordPress (the same platform used to make the this website, the one you’re reading this sentence on right now!).

Here I kept the website back end neat and tidy, identified and sorted bugs in conjunction with our external web developer, created assets (while ensuring everything was on brand), installed plugins, and uploaded fresh content wherever needed.

PR and media

At Back Up, I was responsible for providing the charity’s press function. I did this both proactviely and reactively – pitching out stories to promote the charity, as well as rapidly fielding requests from journalists as and when they came in.

I’ve managed to land placements in local, regional, and national press. Here’s a few examples.

Sky News (broadcast and online) interview with Back Up Head of Services Strategic Partnerships about developments in paralysis treatment.

Birmingham Mail (online) piece about one of our London Marathon challenge participants, promoting his fundraising page.

Hampshire Live (online) article about a former Back Up Trustee’s challenge climbing the tallest mountain in Wales as a wheelchair user.