CES is a research-to-practice nonprofit helping government design better services. The challenge: amplify reach among policymakers, service providers, funders and community leaders with limited resource.
The Centre for Effective Services (CES) is a non-profit, all-island organisation that works with government departments and service providers across Ireland and Northern Ireland to design, implement, and evaluate public policies and services. Their mission is straightforward: help policymakers, service providers, and community organisations make evidence-informed decisions that improve outcomes for people.
CES's team of research specialists, trainers, and implementation experts equip these stakeholders with timely, high-quality evidence and guidance. But there was a challenge: for a lean, mission-driven organisation doing important work on a limited budget, getting heard in a crowded policy landscape was difficult. The communications team needed to amplify their voice, raise CES's profile, and ensure they were top-of-mind for evidence-based projects—and visible to the donors who made their work possible.
Entering a new strategic cycle with a renewed 4-year action plan, the communications team reached out for support.
I was contracted to evaluate their communications status quo and develop a refreshed strategy aligned with CES's renewed priorities. Once that strategy was established, I moved into implementation—becoming an embedded member of the communications team for two years, putting the work into action and seeing the results it delivered for the organisation.
My process starts with Discovery. I dive into the business, the industry, and the audience to understand the full landscape. CES had been doing solid comms work—great outreach, growing social media presence—but I wanted to know what was actually working and why. I conducted audience research, persona building, content analysis, journey mapping, stakeholder interviews, and SEO analysis. The goal was to surface gaps and opportunities in how they were communicating.
One key finding emerged immediately: CES had a massive repository of high-quality content—research reports, policy documents, thought leadership pieces—that nobody was systematically leveraging. Rather than create new content, I mapped this existing goldmine against what we'd learned about each audience's needs and pain points. We could now surface the right content at the right touchpoints.
From there, I developed a detailed 1-2 year communications plan. This included a dedicated LinkedIn Newsletter—Forward Focus—that shared research every two weeks with fresh commentary from CES researchers. It gained over 1,000 followers in weeks with a 40% open rate, well above industry benchmarks. I also refreshed two other email publications: a Knowledge Share newsletter curating the week's research, and a monthly e-Zine sharing updates and achievements from the organisation.
Beyond the newsletters, I oversaw implementation across multiple channels—blog posts, case studies, press releases, media outreach, and social media management—with built-in measurement and iteration. I also worked with leadership to build capability within the team, ensuring they could maintain and evolve the strategy independently.
The work resulted in real movement: audience reach and growth across all channels, with stakeholders engaged at scale—policymakers, service providers, community leaders, donors and funders, and advocacy groups all becoming more aware of and connected to CES's work. We saw growth in social media followers, newsletter subscribers, and video views. But what mattered most was the clarity we created. CES had a coherent communications strategy, a consistent voice, and a clear sense of which messages resonated with which audiences.
This project taught me the real value of stepping back and evaluating before you act. When you're in the day-to-day of an organisation, especially a lean one like CES, it's easy to miss what's already there. That content repository was a goldmine no one was using. It's a reminder that sometimes the best solutions don't require more resource—they require a different way of looking at what you've already got.
I also learned the value of constraints. CES is donor-funded, which means every decision has to be strategic and every effort has to be lean. I could have proposed flashy new campaigns and expensive initiatives. Instead, I chose to work with what existed, be ruthless about priorities, and focus on moving the needle with limited resource. That discipline made the work stronger.
Beyond the strategy and tactics, though, I developed a genuine commitment to CES's mission. They do important work on a shoestring—equipping policymakers and service providers with the evidence and insights they need to make better decisions. And they do it in partnership with communities. CES doesn't build services for people; they build them with people. Seeing advocacy groups and community leaders have a real voice in how services are designed and policy is shaped—that matters. It's shifted how I think about communications and strategy altogether.
