Shelter and its helpline

Nearly all big charities now have a helpline. But few use them to bring their charity’s work to life as well Shelter.

Through recording the volume of calls they get and the common housing issues that people are calling about, the charity is able to act as a barometer for the strain people are under when it comes to the cost of living and prospect of homelessness.

This is more credible and newsworthy than any poll or commissioned research, and obviously a lot cheaper.

A great example of Shelter creating stories in this way was when Metro joined its helpline to find out what it’s like to be homeless at Christmas.

In the story, Liz Clare, team leader for the Shelter Helpline says: “Last year, we saw the number of callers to the helpline rise by ten per cent and this year we’re expecting them to go up again.”

This is news in itself.

But if the best stories are about people, then the helpline provides this in abundance as well.

A story based on the same figures in the Independent starts: “The gruff voice at the other end of the phone sounds panicked. “I'm in court at three,” the man says, his words cracking with anxiety, “that's less than three hours' time. I'm worried we're going to lose our house”.

To complete the story, members of the helpline show how passionate the charity is about helping people and call for further support from the public - the main objective for any charity story.

Helpline worker, Nadeem Khan, said:  “Hearing the desperation in [callers’] voices is heartbreaking but there’s nothing more rewarding than knowing we can help them. We will be busier than ever over the holidays and this means we need as much support as possible to make sure we can help everyone who needs us.”

This really is effective and nearly free PR. But it doesn’t stop with traditional media. ‘

Helpline takes over Twitter

A couple of weeks ago, Shelter complimented this approach by live-tweeting from its helpline for the day. It shared some of the issues that people were calling about and re-tweeted people thanking Shelter for its help at some point in their lives.

Again, this perfectly showed the value of the charity’s helpline and the life-changing support it’s giving people every day.

For this, as well as its forthright campaigning, I’m certain that more people see Shelter as a 

place they can turn to for help. I’ve no doubt that it also inspires more people to support the charity, including me.

This is PR that works.