Creating a national voice

More than 1,000 civic societies in England stand up for pride in place and community, but they had no national voice.  That was all about to change. A new body was to be set up to inspire, influence and guide the individual societies, encourage them to network, bring in a new audience and give them a national profile when needed. The new organisation had to have name and identity that individual, independent groups could unite behind.

The Channel 4 of civic campaigning

The new identity had to help communicate clearly, simply and memorably what the new body was there to achieve and to sum up a role that was in equal measure campaigning and highly responsive to societies at the grassroots.  The rule of thumb was ‘How would Channel 4 design a civic authority?’ We worked with a core group within the movement to create a shortlist of names, which were put to a ballot of the wider civic society movement.  Civic Voice was the overwhelming choice and drove the direction for the identity – the simple stamp, drawn from a speech bubble.

Straight to the heart

Two months after launch, Civic Voice had media coverage on national TV and radio, been invited to meet Ministers in the coalition government and handled more than 500 requests for help and support from local groups. Not bad for a start up.