Author: Vishnee Sauntoo
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Plain English, Second Language: Zhen Yang on Comms and Confidence
Zhen Yang came to the UK from China to study marketing. Twenty years on, she’s a Communications Manager at Greater Manchester Combined Authority, and she’s built her entire career in her second language. In episode 15 of The Comms Collective, Zhen joins host Vishnee Sauntoo to talk about the real cost of communicating in a…
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25 Years in Charity Comms: 6 Lessons That Still Hold True
By Vishnee Sauntoo, Founder, VS Comms • 5 min read Twenty-five years is long enough to stop counting the campaigns and start noticing the patterns underneath them. I’ve written a lot over the years about strategy, audience and messaging. This one is different. This is what the work itself has taught me: the lessons that…
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From Biotechnology to Powerful Storytelling
By Vishnee Sauntoo, Founder, VS Comms • 4 min read I was the first in my family to go to university, and I studied Biotechnology and Genetics. Not journalism. Not English. Not anything that obviously pointed toward a career spent writing. I chose it partly because I loved science, and partly because it felt like…
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How to Plan Unforgettable Events: Insights from a Wedding
Vishnee Sauntoo reflects on her brother’s wedding, highlighting that successful events, like effective communication strategies, rely on thorough planning and clarity of purpose. Key factors include giving ample time for decisions, focusing on a single message, understanding the audience’s needs, maintaining brand consistency, and ensuring proper documentation for future reference.
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Insights from Christopher Horn on Communications and Leadership
In episode 14 of The Comms Collective, I sat down with Christopher Horn, Director of Communications at the States United Democracy Center, for a conversation about career pivots, calm leadership, and why trust — not AI — is the real story shaping the future of communications. Chris didn’t set out to work in nonprofit comms.…
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5 Signs Your Charity Communications Need Improvement
It’s not that charity teams aren’t working hard. They are. It’s that they’re often working hard on the wrong things, or in the wrong direction, without a clear picture of why the communications aren’t landing the way they should. Clarifying purpose can inspire confidence in their efforts.
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Unlocking Confidence with Advita Patel: Key Lessons for Comms
If you work in communications in the charity sector, you already know: “do more with less” is not a temporary crunch. It’s the permanent state of play. Comms teams are being cut to one person. You’re expected to cover internal, external, and public affairs, as well as fundraising, simultaneously. And somewhere in the middle of…
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Celebrating South Asian Heritage: My Story in Comms
Last South Asian Heritage Month, I posted my story for the first time. The short version: first in my family to go to university, a Biotechnology degree I didn’t expect to lead here, twenty-five years in charity communications, and a consultancy I’d just started building. A year on, it felt right to update it, not…
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Essential Questions for Your Charity’s Comms Strategy
Here’s the thing I’ve come to believe after 25 years in communications: in most of those cases, the honest answer and the first answer are the same thing. A brand guidelines document is not a comms strategy. A content calendar is not a comms strategy. Even a beautifully written messaging framework isn’t a comms strategy,…
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Spot It Before It Shouts: Recognising Burnout Signs
The burnout signs comms leaders miss. A funny thing happened at the Gallagher Comms Summit in June. I’d built a 30-minute session on leading through continual transformation. Confidence. Burnout. Leading. Three blocks, balanced timings. Burnout was meant to be the middle bit. It became the issue that the room kept coming back to. That told…