Episode 5 of our Founding Sponsor Mini Series talking to the founding sponsors of the Tech4Good South West relaunch, to explore their interest in tech for good and their hopes and ambitions for the TechforGood South West network.

This episode is in conversation with Natalie Luckham, founder of Naturally Social, and Wiltshire Digital Drive.

"People and planet can work alongside profit. It doesn't have to be one or the other or sector by sector."

“I think tech for good is a huge. It's been gaining so much momentum recently, but you know, we are living in a digital era ultimately, and tech can offer so many answers to so many of the world's problems that we really need to look closer at how we're taking responsibility for that.”

Transcript

Tech4Good South West (00:03.374)

Welcome to the Tech for Good South West podcast brought to you by Annie, Alicia and Arielle. Tech for Good South West has relaunched and we are on a mission to build momentum for the Tech for Good movement across the South West. Our podcast focuses on conversations with charities, investors, startups and initiatives to share their stories, challenges and successes. Our next few episodes are focused on our founding sponsors and their hopes and ambitions for the Tech for Good movement.

Tech4Good South West (00:36.398)

Welcome to the Tech for Good Southwest podcast. My name's Arielle Tye and I'm super excited today to be joined by Natalie Luckham, one of our sponsors. It'd be really great Natalie, if you could start by telling us a bit about your organization. What does Naturally Social do? Wonderful. Thank you for having me Arielle.

So I'm Natalie Luckham. I'm the founder and director of Naturally Social. We're a certified B Corp, social first communications agency. We offer the skills and resources missing in -house with our clients, particularly specializing in social media. Our clients are a whole range of industries, but the main thing that pulls them together is their sense of purpose and their need and desire to make the communities that we work in and live in a better place.

And what is your interest in tech for good?

I think tech for good is a huge. It's been gaining so much momentum recently, but you know, we are living in a digital era ultimately, and tech can offer so many answers to so many of the world's problems that we really need to look closer at how we're taking responsibility for that.

And you've come on board as a sponsor for Tech for Good Southwest and you're joining this network at this really exciting stage. What are your hopes and ambitions for the network? What do you think we'll be able to achieve?

First of all, I think the network is just a fantastic initiative and a really great opportunity for people who have shared values to come together and discuss best practice, to learn, and to tackle some of those big issues and even small issues, you know, education of employees, of businesses, of society.

I think a more connected region that are on the same path to a better future.

And you mentioned the momentum, the word momentum, and we keep mentioning it because it feels really exciting at the moment. Like something's growing in the region. Lots of people are wanting to come together and you've, you know, you've joined that as well. What do you think the benefit is in convening people across Bristol and the Southwest?

Tech4Good South West (02:55.054)

I think we live, we're really fortunate to live in a region who are really switched on by this kind of notion of building a better world. And, you know, we see that a lot, particularly in the cities, but, you know, we all have different experiences. We have different backgrounds. We have different specialities. If we can bring as much diversity to the table, then we're all going to learn from each other for the benefit of everybody both within our own organisations, but also, as I mentioned before, in the societies in which we live.

I want to talk a little bit more about your work now because you were talking about giving that extra capacity to charities, that sort of missing skills, etc. that they might have. Can you tell us a bit more about some of that work and some of the initiatives that you're involved in?

Yeah, definitely. So what we found is, you know, the traditional agency model can be actually quite expensive for a lot of charities. We know that since the pandemic in particular, funding and fundraising is more difficult to obtain. And therefore, even just for small to medium sized charities to access the expertise that they may need in order to drive their organization forward is actually quite difficult. So we try and make that accessible and affordable. And it's really bespoke and varied to those organizations. So sometimes we work on a campaign basis. Sometimes we'll just initially create a strategy for them to kind of deliver themselves. We also offer training for small in -house marketing teams just to keep them up to date with some mentorship around what's changing, what's new in social media, because that's fast, you know, and that's constantly changing. So once you have the resource there, actually, how do you keep updating? How do you afford to do that?

Tech4Good South West (04:48.974)

And we also offer an annual pro bono campaign. It's called the Big Give, which is a national initiative, crowdfunding, match funding initiative. And we offer local charities opportunity to win our services for the duration of that campaign. And we've done that for two years now. We've managed to raise around £10 ,000 for two charities. And yeah, that started after a bit of work I did for Boulterie Air Ambulance in 2016 where I kind of took their first Big Give campaign and raised a huge amount of money actually for some of their facilities in their new air base. And yeah, it's a great campaign, the Big Give itself, and I really wanted to help those smaller organizations to be able to have the same impact.

Wow, it's super inspiring stuff and it's really great to have you on board. Is there anything else that you want to tell us or you want to say?

I'm also a director of a co -founder of a nonprofit. It's called Wiltshire Digital Drive. And I started that during lockdown after running a campaign for one of my clients that sought secondhand laptops to give out to school children who were working from home. And in the space of a few months, you know, we saw this huge demand and it became this tipping point of knowledge around digital poverty.

And so I went forth to set up Wiltshire Digital Drive and now we match secondhand laptops to people who can't afford access to tech and naturally social very much runs the marketing and the comms behind that. So yeah, just to say like that kind of digital responsibility and using tech as a better place very much runs through the work that we do and through me. So yeah, I'm really excited, really excited to see what the future holds.

I'm feeling so inspired because I've been super lucky to be interviewing the different sponsors for Tech for Good Southwest. And it's just incredible to hear business, but doing it differently, doing it responsibly, having these different social values within it. There's so much happening in this space. Why do you think this is happening now?

Tech4Good South West (07:05.934)

I think, you know, the pandemic did have a big part to play because suddenly we were all forced to kind of sit there and re -evaluate what we do and how we do it. And alongside that, we see this huge demand by consumers saying, we want to buy from businesses who are much more ethical, who actually care more about the planet because, you know, let's look at the next generation who are coming up who was so conscious about the environment.

That kind of idea of it being a tipping point, it's like enough is enough and people are now making those demands of businesses and businesses are really having to change how they work. And it just makes sense. You know, I've always had a kind of friction when I started my business, this idea of like, does purposeful work have a place in the private sector? Because my background's in public sector and I was really at odds with that. But when I started, voicing it, actually saying, yes, I do believe that social media can be a place for social good, then things really started to fly for me and for us. And so many more businesses switching onto that. And we see that so many businesses are being led by younger people who have these ethics and these desires.

So yeah, I mean, and even if that inspires other businesses to look at themselves and what they're doing and how they can help, you know, people and planet can work alongside profit. It doesn't have to be one or the other or sector by sector. People and planet can work alongside profit.

What a brilliant line. And yeah, really, I think it summarizes why this network is so important. It's bringing these people together and highlighting that technology can definitely be used for good. And you're absolutely right.

We want change to happen and we want businesses to be done differently. So this is really exciting. Great to have you on and we will be seeing loads more of you. Thank you so much, Natalie.

Pleasure. Thanks for having me.