Exam papers are daunting, anxiety inducing, nerve-wracking. Every year in the UK, millions of young people face them. Scribbling away to answer questions about every subject under the sun.

But some young people are facing questions in their day-to-day lives that are daunting, anxiety inducing and nerve-wracking in a more fundamental way. Problems that feel impossible. Questions of survival, hunger and shelter. Questions that no young person should have to answer as they confront homelessness.

That’s why with this campaign for St Basils we’re highlighting this lived reality by presenting the problems facing young people affected by homelessness in the form of some of the toughest exam questions you’ll ever see.

You can sit down and face these questions for real by picking up a copy of the Metro, or What’s On Birmingham, as they will feature in print throughout December.

This year, St Basils mark their 50th anniversary of being there to help young people solve these problems. Every year they help over 4,000 16-25 year olds across the West Midlands. On average 600 people stay with them every night.

For over half a century St Basils have been breaking the cycle of homelessness. Providing a range of outreach, advice, support, accommodation, employability and engagement services. This work answers the real needs of young people, helping them rebuild their lives, gain skills and confidence, find employment and move on.

Charity fundraising xmas campaign

This year, don’t just send a Christmas card, give a Christmas roof.

In partnership with our good friends at youth homelessness charity St Basils we’ve created a set of three Christmas Cards, each one representing a different snow covered Christmassy roof.

Why a Christmas roof? Well, because each one sold and sent will help St Basils put a roof over the head of a young homeless person this Christmas. Something that will transform their Christmas, and potentially their life, forever.

To create the cards we’ve worked with local illustrator Luke Skinner. Each roof has been hand drawn and features quirky Christmas details to create a beautiful festive scene. When arranged side-by-side they form a continuous set of wintery rooftops.

Inside each card is a QR code so that the recipient can easily make their own donation to St Basils. And, of course, all proceeds from the card sales and donations go straight to St Basils. If you’d like to make a donation, please click here.

One of the big fundraising events for Birmingham based youth homeless charity, St Basils, is their annual walk.

Attended by over 800 keen ramblers who take on one of three cross-country distances (26, 14 or 7 miles) in order to raise much needed funds to help them deliver their vital services.

This year we developed a poster, press and social media campaign to help promote it, all was going well until the lockdown kicked in and it had to be cancelled. They still need help in filling the hole in funding this has left though so if you can spare a few pounds, they’d very much appreciate it. Click here to donate. You could also sign up to their virtual walk which we set up for them as a team of up to five trekking the Camino de Santiago trail.

Stay at Home Charity TV advert

As a result of us all being put into lockdown due to a global pandemic (surreal thing to be writing) our charity partner, Birmingham based St Basils, who work tirelessly to help young people avoid homelessness are seeing a massive reduction in their fundraising capabilities.

Physical events were obviously being cancelled or going online. This all at a time when the need for their essential services were becoming ever more important.

Step forward Birmingham TV with an offer of four weeks free media for them. One problem, St Basils didn’t have a TV ad ready to go. That opportunity was thrown to us with the challenge of scripting and producing an ad in one week… all while having to work from home.

Creatively, the ad breaks were filling up with commercials filmed on mobile phones or variations of a Zoom call. We needed to do something different but still talk of the predicament we all found ourselves in and what a strain that was for some people.

We called on friends of the agency, Oscar Chapman to help animate the spot and the talents of Gayanne Potter to voice it for us.

If you can, please donate by clicking here. They are £5 a day short per person of helping them so every fiver really does make a massive difference.

Stay at Home Charity TV advert

If you’d like to visit our home to discuss how we can help your charity brand, drop us a note saying:. ‘Who’s that knocking at my door?’ here.

The Big Sleepout is now a well established and sublimely organised event raising loads of money in the process for St.Basil’s, our longstanding Midlands charity client that has worked tirelessly for almost 50 years to help young people at risk of homelessness.

Over the ten years we’ve partnered with St Basils we like to think that we’ve helped turn up the spotlight on homelessness not just in Birmingham but across the West Midlands region.

Our latest work for the event draws on the simple notion that just by closing your eyes, you can help others open theirs to the issue of youth homelessness.

The simple visual hook of using type to form facial features is a very sweet way of capturing the essence of the event.

Sign up to the Coventry SleepOut here or The Big SleepOut in Birmingham here.

If you’d like to wake people up to your brand, drop us a note saying:. ‘Pour me a cup of ambition’ here.

The brief was simple – launch a new text service for society’s most vulnerable.

Our solution was even simpler – a visual play on a ‘broken home’ button.

After some friendly coercion with Marc at Open Outdoor, we managed to secure a selection of city centre digital six sheets.

The concept will also be rolled out across POS, DM and giveaways.

Over a year ago, we had the idea to get companies to ‘donate their homepage to help the homeless’.
This was more than just a play on the word ‘home’, it was potentially a huge FIRST for a charity of any description.

Through placing a temporary splash page over a participants actual homepage, visitors would have the option to carry on viewing their intended domain or be diverted to learn about the work of St.Basil’s – the Birmingham based charity founded to eradicate youth homelessness.

Into the bargain, visitors would be asked to sign up for future newsletters and in doing so, we’d reach out to more potential supporters/corporate donations.

Through some good old, dogged cold calling and persuasion, twenty six companies (One Black Bear included) were persuaded to ‘donate their homepage’ on the designated day of September 30th – just one day away from St.Basil’s 44th birthday.
Each one featured the red, dominant homepage in unison on the allotted day and we’re very much hoping that this ‘pilot’ event becomes an annual thing with lots more companies offering up their homepage to help the homeless.

Read more on The Drum and The Birmingham Mail websites.