What our celebrity ambassadors do to support our work
by Kate Timperley
I am lucky enough to be Ambassador Relations Manager for Sense and Sense International, meaning I manage our relationships with our celebrity ambassadors – from our longer term supporters such as actress Rebecca Front, journalist Samira Ahmed, ex England football manager Graham Taylor and BBC presenter, Louise Minchin, to recruiting new high profile supporters for one-off events or campaigns.
Our ambassadors help us highlight the work Sense does to support and campaign for deafblind people. It means a great deal to us that they give us their time and energy so tirelessly to support Sense, helping us achieve our vision of a world in which all deafblind children and adults can be full and active members of society.
In only the last couple of months, for example, we have had Adam Corbally, from BBC's The Apprentice, lead a team of celebrity runners in the 2013 Virgin London Marathon, the Mayor of Peterborough and the Peterborough Lions rugby team support our Tastes Sensational fundraiser by attending our Peterborough awareness raising event and Es Devlin, award winning costume and stage designer, who masterminded the London 2012 Closing Ceremony, open our Weaving Worlds Exhibition in Kentish Town, celebrating artworks created by children with multi-sensory impairment and their families.
Most recently, we were delighted to have the support of sports television presenter, Rob Curling, at an event for which Sense International were the chosen charity - the Funds Industry Charity Shield football tournament.
Rob came along to welcome over three hundred participants from organisations from across the financial sector, inspiring them with a motivational (and very funny!) chat before the tournament and offering some expert commentary for each game and the Beat the Goalie contest held to raise extra funds.
Rob’s involvement provided a focus for the event, and was a useful way to remind people of just what they were raising money for - and also gives us the chance to demonstrate our work to someone like Rob, teaching him about deafblindness and Sense.
Of course, there is definitely a debate to be had about celebrity and philanthropy (see this excellent Guardian article), and there are always many factors to consider when inviting a celebrity to support a charity.
Sense is always very careful to make sure that a celebrity will add something to an event, campaign or public appeal, and has a connection to our work in some way. Ultimately, we believe that our ambassadors can play a crucial role in raising awareness of, and funds for, Sense and help us to achieve our vision.
I absolutely love my job – it is a fantastic opportunity to meet some amazing celebrities who take time out of their busy days to support us, but it is equally (often more!) rewarding to see what an inspiration the deafblind people and families we support can be to our ambassadors. For example, it was a pleasure recently to spend the day with sports presenter Abi Griffiths - we travelled up to Birmingham to observe (and in Abi's case, take part in!) one of the incredible outdoor activities programmes we run for deafblind people across the West Midlands – in this case, rock climbing!
Abi was inspired and moved enough to write a post on her blog all about it. It was wonderful to hear that our work had given so much back to Abi, and we are really excited to be developing some exciting plans for more work with her. Watch this space too for more exciting wider developments in our ambassador work.
Kate Timperley is Ambassador Relations Manager for Sense and Sense International
Comments
veronica timperley
11 June 2013 - 10:02am
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How interesting! Gives me an insight into how, and why, this "celeb" thing works for you, and charities in general.
Thanks. And good luck in further fund and awareness raising.
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