We made it! THANK YOU!
We’ve raised over £25,000 to expand our activities to offer practical solutions to increase diversity in UK newsrooms for talented early career journalists. This money gives the Trust much needed financial security and the ability to develop new plans.
We spent much of the summer preparing for our two campaigns, #RememberingJohn and #NewsroomsForAll. #RememberingJohn commemorated John Schofield, whose welcoming spirit inspires our work, on the 25th anniversary of his death on 9 August. You can see our film about this here. #NewsroomsForAll was a month-long fundraiser to raise money so we can increase our activities.
Both campaigns were hugely successful at raising our profile, increasing engagement, and attracting new followers: never has our Twitter feed been so alive with retweets, likes and comments.
A roll call of thank yous
We owe a fantastic thank you to our 62 champions who readily agreed to record supporting statements about the John Schofield Trust as well as share their thoughts about diversity in UK newsrooms. We are indebted to trustee, the indefatigable Nick Pollard, for opening his contacts book and galvanising our champions to endorse our work.
A round of applause goes to former mentee, Muhammad Darwish, who created our two main campaign films deftly and with great care as well as leading a team of video editors who spent hours cutting material into social media-friendly clips. Muhammad was joined by Amanda Coppard, Amy Gardner, Una Kelly, Keith Miller, James Moyse, Tom Pollard, Charlotte Schofield.
Take a bow current mentee, Layla Wright, who patiently explained the intricacies of social media, sharing tips and best practice.
Thanks are due to our social media team who monitored our platforms during both campaigns: Cathy Farmer, Emma Maxwell, Julie Randles, Kate Riley and Charlotte Schofield.
None of our campaigns would have left the starter blocks without trustees Emma Maxwell and Kate Riley who wrote copy, scheduled posts, and managed both campaigns whilst holding my hand as I reluctantly stepped into the limelight. They did this all with pragmatism, vast swathes of imagination and supreme kindness.
And a FINAL THANK YOU to our 183 donors who all helped make #NewsroomsForAll a reality. We could not have done it without you!
We shall now start to put away our rattling buckets and start the important work on our early career and apprentice mentoring scheme as well as our online mentoring scheme for sixth formers, both of which begin in January.
Thank you for all your support and for sharing our vision of making UK newsrooms as diverse as the audiences they serve.
The John Schofield Trust helped increase my confidence and gave me vital networking opportunities that I would never have otherwise had. What a fantastic legacy the team has built in John’s memory’ – Donor, Tom Phipps, a mentee on the 2018 scheme