“We wanted to create an animation promoting animal sponsorship options. As we are a smaller charity our teams can become busy and sometimes it’s not always possible for us to produce digital assets inhouse. Charity Buddy put us in touch with a fantastic digital designer called Zoe. We briefed Zoe as to what we wanted and she came up with a couple of great ideas. She was great at advising us what kind of animation would work for us and started work keeping us fully updated during the process. Thanks to Charity Buddy for putting us in touch with Zoe as now have a really lovely animation which we are going to use on social”

“We first approached Charity Buddy when we realised that we had outgrown our website, which had become over-burdened with content and was no longer easy to navigate. We had the enthusiasm and time to re-design, but not the technical expertise to guide us through the process and answer technical questions. We had priced the work that had to be done on the commercial marketplace and whilst fair, it was beyond our budget. Charity Buddy put us in touch with a website developer who has given great technical support. We realised that we did not need a new website, but a new theme and our volunteer helped us choose one that was right for our needs.

The website re-design was part of a wider strategy to review our marketing strategy and front of house, before embarking upon a fundraising and awareness raising drive. We had put a great deal of effort into drafting a marketing strategy, but lacking expertise in marketing we were under-confident in our strategy. Charity Buddy was able to put us in touch with a senior marketing consultant, who spent time with us discussing the strategy over Zoom. He was immediately able to identify some key aspects of our strategy that were not working and made meaningful suggestions about how we could make some relatively simple adjustments in our approach that made our posts more impactful. We were able to put those suggestions into practice straightaway and quickly found greater engagement with our posts.

Charity Buddy was also able to connect us with a marketing intern who has been helping us implement our marketing strategy, including brand review and with the website re-design. The access to this affordable service has been of immense value to us. It has freed up human resources at a time when we are working at maximum capacity and has enabled an injection of skills that we are lacking on the team. Importantly, our volunteer will provide guidance and training, so that at the end of her internship, we will be able to carry forward the lessons we have learnt and work more efficiently and with greater impact.

The help we have received via Charity Buddy will enable us to work more impactfully and realise our ambitions of significant growth.”

“When we found out about Charity Buddy we were in a time of great struggle.

We were trying to manage too much work with too few people. Charity Buddy have helped us by providing us with extra people to take duties off us. The people that Charity Buddy have introduced us to have been invaluable to both our fundraising and our animal care. The expertise that they have given us has meant that we can do more and therefore help more.

Charity Buddy are such a dedicated and passionate group and we will be forever grateful to them for their help.”

"Thank you SO much for the introduction to Vicky and Izzy. We have just had a really productive meeting and even if nothing else came of it we have learnt loads. We now have a plan for how they can help us with the Challenge and some other quick fixes to our comms. We are all excited about a bespoke, virtual challenge in the Land of the Leopard National Park, Russian Far East, early next year. Thank you to Charity Buddy."

Charity Buddy has found us a highly skilled website designer who helped iron out issues with our old system and add some va-va-voom to our website. Not only that but she has been brilliant at answering questions and guiding us through the system so we understood the potential of what we could do with our existing site. It means that rather than invest the time, money and work involved in creating a new website urgently we have been able to make our old one work for us, giving us breathing space to plan the future.

Previously Charity Buddy found a designer for me who helped to create a unique logo that followed our brand guidelines and created a modern look for a fundraising build campaign.

Charity Buddy provides an amazing service which allows small charities to access exceptional professional services without the price tags that are beyond our means. At a time when all charities have been feeling the pinch, it has been invaluable to know there is help available in a variety of areas to supplement the skills of our staff and volunteers.

“I wanted to write to thank you. Ellie and Riley, my Charity Buddy volunteers have been so helpful in helping with admin for our new organisation and setting up our website. We were really struggling to do it alone. I would wholeheartedly recommend Charity Buddy.”

“We became aware of Charity Buddy through the One Voice for Animals facebook group that was set up during the Covid pandemic.

We wanted to increase the amount of items that were available to purchase online and had looked at the Woocommerce add on, but we were a bit unsure of how to set it all up.

We contacted Charity Buddy, and they put us in touch with Amy, who was an experienced website developer. She had a vast knowledge of Wordpress and was able to help us with all aspects of setting up an online store. She helped select widgets that would help with calculating postage rates, how to create multiple items with different variations and prices and so much more.

She was always really helpful and was happy to any answer questions that we had, no matter how simple they were. She has helped us increase our charity sales, which in turn means we can help more animals.

Thanks to Charity Buddy, for matching us with such a helpful individual.”

“When we were looking to replace our Fundraiser Trustee we approached Charity Buddy as we knew they had a professional approach to supporting charities such as ours.

Within a few days we were contacted and introduced to Tom who, although new to charity work, was eager to come on board and learn the ropes.

He has already achieved funding for us and we are looking forward to working with him as we move forward.

Thank you again.”

“Well I’m thrilled to let you know that as of today I’ve finally filled all the roles!!

Thank you SO much for your help on this, its been a mission and a half I know, and I really appreciate the time you’ve spent on it.”

"Charity Buddy have been a continued support to SNORS (Special Needs Older Rabbits Sanctuary) for over a year, providing significant support and encouragement. We have received a range of support services from social media management, design, and accounts advice. This has enabled us to reach a much wider audience, raise additional funds and have confidence in our approach. We are incredibly grateful to Charity Buddy for their professionalism and for providing a much valued service."

“Regarding our GDPR support request, I had a great conversation with Sudarshan and I’m delighted with how helpful he was. Thanks so much for making the introduction! We had a good chat this morning and he’s offered to touch base again in two weeks to keep us on the right track.”

You’ve been so helpful finding some great volunteers for ROLDA.

Firstly I wanted to say thank you so much for referring Olga to us, she is absolutely brilliant and is making life so much better in the ROLDA world! She is the perfect mix of ambitious, smart, helpful, intuitive and unstoppable! Even when I don’t have time to reply, she just gets on with stuff and things move forward without me which is absolutely perfect because being part time, I sometimes haven’t got the chance to digest things. Thanks again for your help.”

“Melis looked at our mail shots and was able to give me some good advice, which was mainly about making the message clearer and more concise. As a result, our newsletter, which goes out electronically to about 2000 people will stand a better chance of being read I think. In fact, I sent one to supporters just before xmas and it boosted our Xmas appeal. So, I'm happy that I took part. I would definitely use Charity Buddy again given the chance. Thank you for helping us.”

"Just to let you know that Elliot's marketing strategy feedback was very valuable to me and on the base of it, we are revamping the website and making other changes. I thanked him in an email for the very, very, committed and supportive way he dealt with my questions. What a great Charity Buddy volunteer!!

Amy and I have subsequently been working since last November on the new website and it is finished now but still in the testing phase; I will do the official relaunch soon. The site is now easier to navigate and it is easier for the Fox Guardians followers to donate to our cause.

It was a pleasure working with Amy; she is very diligent and patient and listened to my creative ideas.”

“We had a number of questions surrounding GDPR compliance and managing our relationships with our membership.

Sudarshan was very helpful and gave us a direction from which to proceed.”

“We have worked with Charity Buddy through One Voice for Animals Uk, helping us to set up our initial funding page. Charity Buddy provided much needed advice on registering with the Charity Commission and pointed us in the direction of lots of useful online guidance.”

“Thanks to Charity Buddy, we were linked up with Amber, an amazing illustrator who created a beautiful tiger face for us to use to promote wild tiger conservation. This is a great, friendly service. Love it!”

“I just wanted to drop an email to express our thanks for the amazing piece of work your volunteer Dominique has done for our charity.

Dom has reviewed all our HR policies, created us a fabulous Employee handbook and brought us up to date with all legislation. This has been so overdue for us, and with no-one to seek help from, it has been such a lifeline. Dom is so professional, engaging and supportive and so I just wanted to let you all know how thankful we are for all your support, but especially to Dom.

All our love and thanks from the two legs and four!”

Deborah needed help with accounting. She told us, “Kevin was great. I don't actually know what he did, but he took all of our records, asked me some questions, and then found an accountant with the right insurance who could make the return for us.

Although I was still anxious the whole way through, I really appreciate everything he did, because I really didn't know where to start, and trying to get through to HMRC for help wasn't working, as there were such long queues for the help lines.

The return will be going off next week, and I feel like if I have to do another one, I may even be able to do it myself next time!

Deborah

Following the support with our digital marketing and social media, “I think we are sorted for now and have hugely benefited from Charlotte's help on behalf of Charity Buddy.

It has been brilliant meeting you (Jenni) as well. Your charity is a shining light for the rest of the world.”