Our Work With Mind
May 19, 2023 | Mental Health Awareness Week, mental health
In celebration of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, we’re sharing some of our recent work with Mind.
As a mindful employer, we’ve always been driven to support the mental health and well-being of our employees and the wider community.
That’s why we’ve frequently worked with mental health charity Mind. Over the years, we’ve worked with Mind on a series of workshops and charity events to help raise money and awareness for all their incredible work supporting people with mental health difficulties.
Last year, this resulted in two fantastic projects – our annual charity walk and a charity Christmas card.
In July 2022, our team walked 27.5 kilometres on a journey through the countryside from Bingley to Leeds as part of our annual charity walk. It was a great chance to spend time together as a team, and we managed to raise over £2,000 for Mind.
Later in the year, we worked with Mind again to create a Christmas campaign entitled ‘Add colour to someone’s Christmas’. The campaign was designed around the idea that not everyone feels the same about Christmas. It can be a difficult time of year, especially for those with mental health conditions.
We partnered with Jenni Sparks – illustrator, map maker, and typographic designer who previously worked with Nike, Adidas and Google – to create a powerful reminder to be thoughtful of others, especially if they are struggling with their mental health.
The project centred on one of Jenni’s illustrations, which was transformed into an interactive digital map where people could sponsor the images. Upon sponsoring the image, it would change from black and white to full colour, highlighting the core campaign message of ‘Add some colour to someone’s Christmas’.
As people sponsored the images, they were able to add a personal message to support those who might be struggling, helping to raise thousands of pounds for the charity, which they could then put into providing services and support for those struggling.
“The creative ideas of Mednet meant that we could really celebrate being a part of the vibrant community of Leeds, which was such a great talking point. We’ve had so many people ask about the campaign, even in the months afterwards, because it was such a unique and beautiful idea which fit in with our core values perfectly and helped to convey who we at Leeds Mind are to a wider audience. Mednet listened to what we wanted to achieve, and went above and beyond what we had hoped for to create a professional, innovative and feeling campaign that we are so proud of.” – Mind.
Mind shared the link to interactive illustrations on their social media platforms, and we then shared their posts to extend the reach to our followers. Overall, over 60 pieces of social media content were shared about the campaign, gaining a total of 24,430 impressions and 725 engagements.
The campaign also caught the eyes of the press. It secured radio and newspaper coverage, guiding people to the campaign and reiterating the message that not everyone finds Christmas easy and that Mind are there to offer those people the support they need.
Aside from raising awareness of Mind and directing those struggling to a source of support, the campaign also opened new doors for the charity. On the back of the campaign’s success, Mind have been able to build relationships with several businesses and organisations within Leeds, creating new opportunities for fundraising and awareness.
“The campaign opened up new connections to Leeds Mind, which are absolutely invaluable for growing our brand, raising awareness in the city and opening up fundraising opportunities. We now have a budding relationship with Leeds Museums and Art Galleries, which has opened up conversations about doing exhibitions about Leeds Mind, using Kirkstall Abbey to host meetings and events and generally helped us to build a friendship with our neighbours. Because of Mednet and the advice of Pete in particular, we now have a relationship with Leeds Trinity Shopping Centre, which has allowed us to schedule two fundraising and awareness events for 2023 already, as well as talking about how we can keep working together. Connections like this are so integral to what we do, because they imbed us into the community and allow us to create events that we otherwise could not afford to do!” – Mind.
Despite the rising cost of living crisis and usual Christmas budget concerns, we received over £1000 in donations for the campaign. The impactful message and creative delivery struck home with many people, leading to a successful campaign and over 40 individual donations to help support Mind to continue their work.
“The cost of living crisis is effecting fundraising profoundly, and we heard from our peers in different charities that most Christmas fundraising campaigns didn’t do as well as they had been predicted to because of this. To see that our supporters were inspired by the beautiful message of the campaign to donate, even during these financially tough times, is an absolute credit to the team at Mednet.” – Mind.
This content was provided by Mednet