The headline findings are worth sitting with for a moment.
Charity comms teams are getting smaller. In 2020, 32% of organisations had a comms team of just one to three people. By 2025, that figure had risen to 43%. At the same time, the proportion with 11 or more comms staff has dropped from 37% to 22%. Teams are leaner, but the workload has not reduced with them.
Staff turnover is high, with 42% of respondents having been in their current role for only one to three years. A quarter have no training or development planned for the coming year. And in larger organisations, “lack of role definition” is repeatedly cited as a key driver of unhappiness, with just 48% of staff at extra-large charities describing themselves as happy in their roles.
Perhaps most telling: only 44% of organisations have a formal communications strategy in place. And those without one are significantly less likely to feel that comms is valued at leadership level. The research shows that where a comms strategy exists, 32% of staff feel highly valued. Without one, that figure falls to just 14%.
The same pattern holds for digital and brand strategy. The absence of strategic frameworks does not just affect quality of output; it affects how the entire function is perceived, funded, and supported.
The report’s section on strategic thinking identifies something we recognise directly from our work with third sector clients. The challenge is not usually a lack of talented communicators. It is the structural inability to move from operational delivery to strategic leadership.
With smaller teams, higher turnover, and limited development budgets, charity comms professionals are often so consumed by the day-to-day that longer-term strategic work never gets the attention it deserves. Brand positioning, messaging frameworks, visual identity, digital strategy, integrated campaigns: these are not extras. They are the foundations that make everything else more effective.
And when leadership does not have a strong understanding of what good communications involves, the problem compounds. The report notes that 48% of respondents believe their board or senior management team does not have a good understanding of comms. When senior leaders do understand it, half of charity communicators feel highly valued. When they do not, that number falls to just one in ten.
As the value of comms section of the report puts it: “comms is frequently cited as one of the first departments to face redundancies or budget cuts during financial uncertainty.” The sector knows this is short-sighted. But knowing it and changing it are two different things.
This is the context in which we work with charities, NGOs, and third sector organisations, from our studio in Cardiff, South Wales, and with clients across the UK.
We are not simply an extra pair of hands for when a team is overstretched (though we can certainly help in that way). What we offer is strategic creative partnership: an outside perspective with sector knowledge, the ability to work alongside internal teams without adding headcount, and the experience to help organisations build the kind of brand and communications foundations that genuinely shift how they are perceived.
Working with an outsourced creative partner like Design Tribe means a charity can access senior-level thinking on brand strategy, visual identity, communications materials, and digital presence without the commitment and cost of building that capability in-house. For smaller charities where the comms team might be one or two people wearing many hats, that access to strategic support can be transformative.
For larger organisations, it means having a trusted external partner who brings consistency and creative rigour to projects, campaigns or rebrands that the internal team simply does not have the time or specialist bandwidth to lead.
At Design Tribe, we are a creative consultancy based in Cardiff, South Wales, working with charities and community organisations across Wales and the UK. Our work spans brand strategy, visual identity, graphic design, and WordPress web design and development – and we treat all of it as communications work, because that is what it is. We are a CharityComms member, a WP Engine consultancy partner, and we understand the pressures, values, and ways of working that are specific to the third sector.
The services we bring to charity and NGO clients include:
Brand strategy and identity. We help organisations define who they are and how they communicate that consistently, across every touchpoint. A clear, confident brand is one of the most powerful tools a charity has for building trust with funders, supporters, and the communities they serve.
Graphic design and communications. From fundraising campaigns to annual reports, service communications to social media assets, we create materials that are clear, on-brand, accessible, and built to achieve something.
WordPress websites. As a WP Engine consultancy partner, we design, build and host WordPress sites that are practical, well-designed, and easy for internal teams to manage. No unnecessary complexity; just websites that work hard for the organisations behind them. We also have bilingual (English and Welsh) capability, which matters for many organisations working across Wales.
Ongoing outsourced creative support. For teams that need regular creative input without the overhead of a full consultancy retainer, we offer flexible, long-term relationships that put a strategic creative partner in your corner when you need one.
The range of organisations we work with reflects the breadth of the third sector itself.
Lamplight is a UK-based CRM platform built specifically for charities, helping them manage casework, track outcomes, and demonstrate impact. When their brand and website were no longer reflecting the strength of the product behind them, we worked with them on a full brand evolution: new visual identity, messaging, a bespoke modular WordPress site, and a UX review of the platform itself. The result was a clearer, warmer, more sector-confident presence, and a clear rise in website enquiries following relaunch.
Ymddiried Media Grants Cymru is a Welsh charity supporting creatives in the media industry, with a heritage stretching back to the global success of SuperTed in the 1980s. When grant applications were not reflecting the quality of what was on offer, they came to us for a comprehensive rebrand and a new bilingual English and Welsh WordPress website. Since the rebrand launched, applications have nearly doubled.
We also worked with PYST on Am, Wales’s bilingual platform for the creative and cultural sectors, connecting independent artists, venues, festivals, community groups and national institutions. The brief went well beyond a visual refresh. We overhauled the information architecture, redesigned the bilingual user experience so Welsh and English sit properly side by side rather than crowding the same page, and built custom WordPress tools to support a growing editorial team. We also handled a large-scale content migration: nearly 14,000 items, around 700 organisation profiles, and over 16,000 media assets, all brought into the new structure without losing context. It is the kind of project that does not announce itself loudly, but underpins how an entire sector finds and connects with itself.
More recently, we have been working with Marauders Men’s Health, a South Wales charity based in Rhondda Cynon Taff, tackling isolation and mental health in men through free, peer-led activities. Their new WordPress website needed to feel as welcoming and unpretentious as the organisation itself, clear enough for someone who is nervous about reaching out to still feel like they can.
These are three very different organisations, but the underlying challenge is the same in each case: finding the right way to communicate clearly, build trust, and make it easier for the right people to find them and engage with what they do.
The CharityComms report is a useful mirror for the sector. It shows the structural pressures that make it difficult for internal teams to step back and do the strategic work that would ultimately make their everyday jobs more effective and more valued.
Outside investment in brand and communications is not a luxury for charities. It is often the thing that unlocks everything else: clearer positioning with funders, stronger engagement with donors and supporters, more cohesive internal understanding of what the organisation stands for.
If your charity or NGO is navigating any of the challenges the report describes, whether that is a lack of strategic direction, a brand that has drifted over time, or a small team that simply needs specialist support on a major project, we would welcome a conversation. We work with organisations based in Cardiff, across South Wales, and throughout the UK.
Get in touch to find out how Design Tribe can help your organisation communicate with greater clarity, consistency and impact.
Design Tribe is a creative consultancy based in Cardiff, South Wales, specialising in brand strategy, graphic design, and WordPress web design and development for charities, NGOs and purpose-driven organisations across Wales and the UK. We are members of CharityComms and a WP Engine consultancy partner. Find us in the CharityComms Freelance and Supplier Directory.
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