Engaging young people

Young people are a critical audience for the modern charity. This group is relevant to today’s campaigning and volunteering and are critical to securing future donations from individuals. Understanding the priorities and experiences of young people must be the foundation stone for engaging with this audience. Amid social commentary that perpetuates many myths about young people it is increasingly important to gather robust information upon which to make decisions.

Key case study: Mencap - Engaging young people with learning disability

Like many voluntary organisations today, Mencap, the UK’s leading learning disability charity, intends to dedicate greater focus on the task of getting young people (aged 5 – 18) engaged with, motivated by and involved in its work.

To form a solid platform for this strategy, Mencap commissioned nfpSynergy to undertake cost-effective desk research in order to benefit from related existing learning and knowledge in this field. 

The project helped Mencap to establish the general principles for communicating with and engaging young people.  These principals were then supported by the deconstruction of a range of case studies from the public, commercial and voluntary sectors where organisations have successfully communicated to this audience in the past and inspired them to take action.  These included the DfT’s Think! Road Safety campaign, Comic Relief and Red Nose Day and the DfES’s Teen Pregnancy programme.

The project enabled Mencap to hit the ground running when designing and implementing their campaigning and fundraising strategy for this vital audience group.