Each year, the annual Big Give Christmas Challenge offers charities an incredible opportunity to supercharge their fundraising efforts. For Trevi, a Plymouth-based charity supporting women and children, this campaign is a key moment in their calendar. Traditionally, a bespoke video has always sat at the heart of their Big Give campaigns, serving as a powerful tool to inspire donors and fundraisers. However, in 2024, coming at the tail end of the fundraising and communication team's busiest quarter, circumstances meant producing a video with footage of real women's stories hadn't been an option.

Without this cornerstone asset, Trevi faced the challenge of finding a new way to connect with their audience and maximise the campaign’s impact. With only a week to produce the materials, the pressure was on to deliver something meaningful, impactful, in line with Trevi’s ethos, and powerful enough to support their £40,000 fundraising target. 

Producing a campaign in just a few days wasn't the only challenge. Like many charities, Trevi needed to tread a fine line between raising awareness through emotive storytelling and respecting the dignity and lived experiences of the women they support. These stories are powerful, but they must be handled with care to ensure they are never exploitative or intrusive, it takes time to connect and build relationships with beneficiaries who might feature in any promotional activity. 

Without the ability to feature real women to craft a bespoke campaign video, I needed to find an innovative way to represent the stories of the women Trevi helps—one that would be visually striking, deeply emotive, and respectful of their experiences.

To meet the challenge, I drew on the copy that had formed Trevi’s Big Give application and built a fresh creative approach that used light as a central motif—a theme that had been evolving across several recent campaigns I'd worked on for the charity.

I designed a campaign that used points of light to represent women experiencing homelessness in various settings. The lights served as a powerful, symbolic way to highlight the presence of women in crisis without focusing directly on individual faces or identities. This approach allowed us to convey hope and resilience while maintaining sensitivity to the lived experiences of real women.

I created a mixed-media campaign video that layered the light imagery with a carefully mixed soundtrack. Using scenes where points of light represented women rounded off with brief, impactful footage of Trevi’s support workers—repurposed from a previous campaign— I crafted a visually engaging and emotionally resonant piece.

I developed a suite of complementary materials, including social media graphics, instructional posters, website banners, and sent scheduled emails to the Trevi supporter database. These assets carried through the light and dark theme, symbolising the journey of women and girls from crisis to recovery.

The campaign seamlessly tied into the overarching themes that I had been developing for Trevi over the previous months. By continuing to use light and dark imagery to tell their story, we were able to create a consistent and recognisable visual identity for Trevi that will continue to resonate in future campaigns.

Despite the time constraints, the campaign met all of Trevi’s needs. The use of light as a symbolic representation of women’s stories struck exactly the right balance between raising awareness and maintaining sensitivity. It was so effective that Trevi plans to use the light motif in future campaigns to represent the women they support when sharing real stories.

The assets not only engaged donors and fundraisers but also delivered a powerful, cohesive narrative that highlighted the impact of Trevi’s work while protecting the dignity of the women whose stories they tell.

Trevi’s 2024 Big Give campaign was an example of how creativity and versatility can create a powerful result. Arriving at the concept and motif quickly meant that in just a few days I was able to deliver a campaign that resonated deeply with supporters and provided the charity with a strong visual identity to build on.

It was a privilege to work with Trevi, whose work changes lives every day. This project reinforced the importance of using storytelling responsibly and creatively—ensuring that the voices of those we represent are honoured and respected.