Hospice of the Good Shepherd

Background

The Hospice of The Good Shepherd is a Chester-based charity that provides specialist palliative care for people with both cancer and other life-limiting illnesses, at all stages, free of charge. The dedicated team of staff and healthcare professionals tend to the physical, emotional and social needs of those with a life-limiting illness and help to maintain their dignity. Not only this, but they also care for relatives, carers and friends as well as patients.

Objectives

  • On 17th February 2020, on Random Acts Of Kindness Day, Source PR decided to offer out 6 months of voluntary charity PR to a local Chester organisation. After lots of great candidates come forward, we decided to work with the hospice and began to pick up national charity PR activity for them from 13th March 2020.
  • Our main objectives were to support the hospice with their fundraising initiatives, especially since the Covid-19 outbreak threatened the future of the charity.

Key Activity

  • Supported the hospice with their #SaveYourHopice campaign that was launched in a bid to protect the charity after devastation from the Coronavirus pandemic.
  • Shared word of hospice fundraising campaigns including virtual dog and cat shows, virtual London marathon fundraiser, Olive’s 100th birthday fundraiser and the dedicate a daisy appeal.
  • Created social media content for the hospice’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts in line with running campaigns, such as the virtual dog show.

The Results

  • BBC North West Tonight coverage aired on 4th September 2020 of the hospice’s dedicate a daisy appeal, which saw them selling out of their entire daisy collection shortly after. Over 1,800 daisies were sold at £30 apiece, resulting in around £54,000 raised for the charity.
  • During national lockdown, Source PR secured coverage on ITV Granada Reports for one of the hospice’s nurses, Bethany, who ran a ‘virtual’ London marathon in light of the actual event being cancelled.
  • Online coverage for the charity achieved both on a regional level, in the likes of Cheshire Live & the Chester Standard, as well as nationally with the likes of the Huffington Post, BBC and ITV.
  • So far, £211,616 has been raised on the #SaveYourHospice JustGiving fundraiser.
  • As a result of all of our hard work, the hospice kindly named us one of their ‘hospice heroes’.

“Thank you to Source PR for their support on helping us promote our events. They have done so much behind the scenes work like writing press releases, creating social media plans and getting us featured on the likes of Huffington Post, ITV Granada and BBC North West!

“Our most recent event was our Dedicate A Daisy appeal where they were able to secure BBC North West to cover the event. This created a huge spike in interest for the appeal and a total of 1,800 were sold! This will generate thousands of pounds for us to continue providing care for local people living with a life-limiting illness.

“Thank you, guys, for all your support.”

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