Collaboration = Double Impact
In the last 2 years, we’ve accumulated over 100 days in our charity bank…
This means we’ve been able to offer (and are continuing to) charities and grassroots organisations 100 days worth of subsidised day rates.
We’ve worked with charities both in the Tees Valley and further afield, covering topics such as isolation, loneliness, mental health, baby loss, homelessness, carers, domestic violence (+more)
A charity we’ve worked with has used their video in multiple funding bids to date, with 2 of them being successful. Their video has had over 50,000 views online🩷
How? We use the profit from your corporate commissions to pay it forward!
Impact
By working with us, you're not just telling your own brand story, you're helping charities tell theirs...
Since launching, we've worked on over 30 projects with charities and grassroots organisations🩵
Our corporate commissions have made this possible. Excited to see where this year takes us.
AFRIDAC | Marvin’s Case Study
Back in August we delivered a 3 day workshop about Advocacy ThroughFilm with African Development and Advocacy Centre and in November, we returned to Afridac to work with them on a promotional and evaluation film which meant that we were reunited with some of the participants of our workshops. It meant we could gather some feedback once they’ve had a chance to digest everything we taught them (trust us, there was A LOT!).
One of the participants was Marvin, who turned up eager to learn about filmmaking. He brought his own camera and asked us questions around settings, and how to utilise it in the best way possible. During the 3 day workshops, he delivered a super creative piece around mens mental health, and we were genuinely impressed by the final product and could immediately tell that he was passionate about video — and he has an eye for it too!
So hearing that he has since gained the confidence to take on PAID video work almost made us cry, no joke. It’s stories like this that really remind us of why we started ThroughFilm and why we took it in the direction that we did. We meet so many awesome people, and we’re so appreciative of the feedback we’ve received so far. Being referred to as Marvin’s mentors = goals.
This week we want to focus on a client that has trusted our creativity, has been the definition of collaborative, and overall a joy to work with. We met The Naked Pharmacy this year and they’ve already made a huge impact to our ecosystem, contributing 15.5 days to our charity bank, allowing us to work on a number of projects with the amazing African Development and Advocacy Centre
The Naked Pharmacy meet Afridac 🫱🏼🫲🏿Afridac meet The Naked Pharmacy
These commissions have been the perfect embodiment of how our business model works, because for each The Naked Pharmacy project (we’ve completed 3), we’ve been able to take on 1 Afridac project👏🏼
Not only that, both organisations are totally on board with our ethos, and are equally as committed to making this world a better place🫶🏼 so both of these partnerships have meant a lot to us.
Making Every Contact Count | The Impact
You’ve probably heard us say before that we use profit to make videos more accessible and affordable for the Voluntary and Community sector. But what we need to get better at is letting our clients know how this ecosystem works, because everything that we do hinges on a very delicate balance. Each day we offer out at a subsidised rate for our charity clients has to come from somewhere, right?
Throughout December, we want to share some of the clients that have allowed ThroughFilm to function this way. Just to be clear, we don’t charge our corporate clients an inflated rate to make this happen. We’re a community interest company, which means that our main priority is people, so it’s the profit we make that allows this. Our clients are not only getting a brand spanking new video, they’re also simultaneously providing community benefit - it’s a win win🫶🏼
We also thought this would be a chance to let the two worlds collide, and introduce our corporate clients to the charity clients their commission has contributed towards, so that they can see the beautiful work going on within our communities, and the impact they’ve made with their commission. In this instance, it’s the North East and North Cumbria NHS and their Making Every Contact Count initiative that has paved the way for a number of our charity commissions. The first one being a film for the wonderful Red Balloons who offer mental health support through their walk and talks, online community, 121’s and peer support. This film was all about Peer Support, and since making that, they have set up a Tees Valley Peer Support Network , helping out other grassroots organisations in our area.
The ongoing projects with MECC have also meant that we’ve been able to start working with the wonderful Hart Gables LGBT, another North East based organisation, which offers immeasurable support for the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as training and consultancy for both private and voluntary sector organisati
Just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the past couple of weeks as we've been swept up in the whirlwind of award ceremonies, with one upcoming this Thursday as well! #Teesbusinesswomen 👀
Back in May we won Media & Entertainment StartUp and Young Entrepreneur at the StartUp Awards for the North East, North Yorkshire and The Humber which automatically entered us into the finals of the national StartUp Awards. These awards took place a couple of weeks ago, and were definitely a totally different experience to other ceremonies we've attended in the past. Such chilled out vibes and we even got to learn line dancing💃🤠
We didn’t win the national awards, but we gained ample in return. Winning the regional awards not only gave us a boost in confidence, the whole experience also gave us a moment of reflection and acknowledgment for how far we’ve come. We’re definitely guilty of being so invested in working on the business, that we forget to take a second to not only THINK about what we’ve achieved, but also celebrate. The good old fashioned letting loose and toasting to it all, together. So traveling down South, not to work, but to spend the day dedicated to us was so refreshing and so needed.
We were then absolutely buzzing to attend the North East Charity Awards. These meant so much to us because every project we work on revolves around our goal of working with the Voluntary and Community Sector, and some of our favourite projects involve our charity clients. So to be shortlisted in the Outstanding Social Enterprise category, this early on in our journey, felt like no small feat. We appreciate being amongst so many organisations who are inspiring change and making the North East such a beautiful place to live, even through the hardest of times❤️
Again, we may not have won that night, but we still see it as a huge win because:
1. We were recognised amongst SO MANY life changing organisations - that in itself is mindblowing and we have crazy ador
We’ve caught a bug - and it’s for filmmaking workshops!!!🎥👩🏫 In August we had the absolute pleasure of travelling down to the London Borough of Hackney to deliver 3 days of filmmaking workshops as part of the African Development and Advocacy Centre Summer Advocacy Youth Camp. The majority of the cohort were getting their GCSE results that week, and had chosen to spend a whole week of their summer break learning how they could use their voices to benefit society 🗣️🌍. Each one of them taking a seed of an idea and transforming it into their own finished advocacy film in just three days.🤩 They were SUCH an inspiring bunch.We’re not exaggerating when we say that this week brought us so much joy, personally and professionally, and gave us a new buzz and perspective on how we can harness the power of filmmaking. So what’s next…lots of thinking and planning on our part to see how we can bring this to more communities. Filmmaking workshops…we have a feeling this is just the start. ❤️ A very special shout out to the amazing team at Afridac for asking us to be involved, and being the absolute dream team 🤩 thank you!
Surrey ➡️ Greater Manchester ➡️ Tyneside
The last few months have been full of:
🥰 New connections
💥 Catch ups with people we’ve filmed before - which is always a treat
🏙️ New places to explore and shoot in
💻 Exciting edits with lots of layers and creativity
☀️ Sun peeking through occasionally (more of this please!)
And lots of community spirit, laughs and hard work. Looking forward to the next few months👀
Starting a business with your best pal means sometimes you forget to catch up on general life and all the bits in-between.Our Monday walks have quickly become a fundamental to the running of our business and the loveliest opportunity for us to both switch off for a while and just be Sian and Judy❤️ Todays catch up was a healthy mix of shoot logistics and chatting about greek mythology… as you do 😂🐍🏺
You didn’t think we’d forget to post a reel of our road-trip did you?🚙 This week’s trip took us all the way to Surrey and we are feeling so energised on our journey home - full of discoveries, questions, and ideas. And it can all be attributed to spending the whole day with the ace people at The Naked Pharmacy. As well as doing what we love, people are the reason we set up ThroughFilm. We’ve always had a strong drive to use our skills as a force for good and took a risk to make that happen, and we feel really connected to The Naked Pharmacy’s values. They are passionate, have incredible expertise around natural health solutions, and they truly care about helping people thrive. Fun fact: Kevin, the founder of The Naked Pharmacy achieved a position as the youngest ever apprentice at Boots, just age 16, and worked alongside John Nicholson, who developed Ibruprofen🤯👨🏻🔬🧬
We recently teamed up with Red Balloons to create a statement film for them...
The theme of this film was all about walking in someone else’s shoes. Ill mental health can be incredibly isolating, and having someone to talk to, or someone who will simply walk alongside you through the storm can be extremely powerful and help lift some of the weight we carry. Red Balloons work super hard to be that for people, we’ll let the film do the talking...it can be viewed on our website throughfilm.org
Fun fact: Red Balloons were actually one of our very first charity clients and we’ve worked together since. Spending time with them really fills our cup and we always leave filming so hopeful and inspired, they’re the loveliest bunch❤️
Red Balloons
We recently teamed up with Red Balloons to create a statement film for them...
The theme of this film was all about walking in someone else’s shoes. Ill mental health can be incredibly isolating, and having someone to talk to, or someone who will simply walk alongside you through the storm can be extremely powerful and help lift some of the weight we carry. Red Balloons work super hard to be that for people, we’ll let the film do the talking...it can be viewed on our website - throughfilm.org 🎈
Fun fact: Red Balloons were actually one of our very first charity clients and we’ve worked together since. Spending time with them really fills our cup and we always leave filming so hopeful and inspired, they’re the loveliest bunch❤️
Inspire change, ThroughFilm.
