Transforming staff into charity advocates

Transforming staff into champions for Milton Keynes Hospital Charity’s 30th birthday

Milton Keynes Hospital Charity celebrated its 30th birthday in July 2025. Across these 30 years, the charity has helped to fund projects such as the £1 million cancer centre and lifesaving BabyLeo incubators. The charity has had a large impact on the hospital, but due to limited resources it was relatively unknown to its most powerful advocates, the hospital staff. The charity asked us to support and drive meaningful engagement which would hopefully lead to fundraising success.

large impact on the hospital, but due to limited resources it was relatively unknown to its most powerful advocates, the hospital staff. The charity asked us to support and drive meaningful engagement which would hopefully lead to fundraising success.

Approach

To understand how much was known about the charity and its presence within the hospital, we conducted interviews and surveys with staff across the hospital. The findings showed that 72% of staff had limited knowledge of the charity and what it did within the hospital. Our team also noticed a lack of physical presence during their visit to the hospital. Whilst other charities and teams had vinyl graphics and posters displayed around the hospital, Milton Keynes Hospital Charity did not. This was a missed opportunity to reach busy staff, patients, and relatives who walk hospital corridors day in and day out.

Using these insights, Blue Lozenge developed a digital communications campaign for the charity’s 30th birthday named ’30 Years Unwrapped’ that aimed to increase staff and the local communities’ knowledge and awareness of the charity. We also created a bespoke brand pack that the team could use to create stickers, vinyl graphics, and posters to place around the hospital to highlight the fantastic work it does and how they can get involved.

This strategy was designed to align with the charity’s three-year plan of boosting income, diversifying fundraising, and strengthening stakeholder ties.

Impact

A bespoke digital campaign highlighting the impactful stories behind the charity’s fundraising over the last 30 years was launched in the run-up to Christmas, and the brand pack will be implemented by the charity team throughout 2026. More on the impact of our work will be coming soon!

Vanessa Holmes, Associate Director at Milton Keynes Charity said:

“We at Milton Keynes Hospital Charity have thoroughly enjoyed working with Blue Lozenge. Understanding that we’re a small team, they’ve supported us so well from the discovery phase to delivery. Knowing how the NHS and NHS charities work, the team really came through and researched, created and produced an amazing anniversary campaign for us to encourage donations and engagement. We would absolutely work with Blue Lozenge again and would highly recommend them to any NHS org or charity needing support with communications.”

If you would like help to run a campaign, contact us at: hello@bluelozenge.co.uk

Increased comms capacity for a major event

Summary

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) commissioned Blue Lozenge to provide emergency communications capacity for the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, the largest ceremonial event in over 70 years. Blue Lozenge rapidly deployed senior communications specialists and tactical experts to provide gold and silver command cover, 24/7 support, media management, and crisis communications planning. The team integrated with central government, the Royal Household, emergency services, and health partners. The support enabled effective public safety messaging for over 100,000 visitors, prevented road gridlock, and allowed the permanent RBWM team to manage sustainable workloads throughout the event.

Supporting the communication effort for the Queen’s funeral

The funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 represented the largest ceremonial event in over 70 years. The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) faced an unprecedented communications challenge that far exceeded their normal capacity. They needed immediate, high-calibre communications expertise to augment their team during this period of exceptional demand, ensuring public safety and preventing overcrowding as over 100,000 visitors converged on Windsor. 

Approach

Blue Lozenge rapidly deployed experienced communications professionals to integrate with and support the RBWM team: 

  • Provided senior communications specialists to offer gold and silver command cover 
  • Embedded tactical communications experts to handle operational delivery 
  • Established 24/7 professional support to maintain continuous communications 
  • Supplemented the existing team’s capacity for media management, social media, and public engagement 
  • Contributed specialist crisis communications expertise for contingency planning 

Our team seamlessly integrated with multiple partner agencies, including central government, the Royal Household, emergency services and health partners, ensuring coordinated communications across all stakeholders. 

Impact

Our resourcing solution delivered exceptional results: 

  • Maintained continuous communications coverage throughout this historic event 
  • Prevented system overwhelm despite the extraordinary demands 
  • Enabled effective public transport messaging that prevented road gridlock 
  • Supported real-time issue management with no significant incidents 
  • Allowed the permanent RBWM team to manage sustainable workloads during an intense period 

The flexible resourcing model we provided meant RBWM could rapidly scale their communications capacity to meet this once-in-a-lifetime event, then return to normal operations afterward without the long-term costs of permanent recruitment.