You know you’re doing remarkable work. The people who decide what happens next don’t.

Somebody in your organisation is doing something remarkable. Possibly several somebodies. None of them will tell you about it, because to them it’s just Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the funder wants evidence, the board wants a story, and the people best placed to write it are the people doing the work. So nobody writes it. The funder gets numbers instead. Useful numbers, perhaps. But numbers alone don’t tell you what changed, why it mattered, or who made it happen.

It usually takes someone from outside to notice. Everyone inside has stopped seeing it.

PR and journalism trained me for this. Microsoft is where I first did it at scale – two years, a door into every part of their UK business, and a brief to find the proof buried inside it.

What it’s costing you

Funding decisions get made on spreadsheets. Boards approve budgets without seeing what changed. The people doing the best work never hear it recognised. And when money gets tight, the work nobody can describe is the first to go.

Who this is for

• CSR, impact, EDI, and sustainability leads whose work is invisible outside the building, and increasingly inside it
• Transformation and change leaders mid-programme, where nobody can explain what’s happening and everyone has stopped asking
• Charities and social enterprises who need to show funders what actually changed, not just what was spent
• Comms leaders who know the stories are there and have no route to them

What I do

• Impact reports and CSR storytelling
• Case studies and partner stories
• Transformation and change communications
• Staff onboarding and training materials
• Whitepapers and policy papers
• Ongoing editorial programmes – newsletters and story pipelines as an in-house reporter on retainer

How we get there

Interviews across teams and projects, including the people nobody thought to ask. I listen for what isn’t being said alongside what is. Then I bring back the stories your organisation has been carrying without knowing it.

You end up with something the outside world can see – and, often, with staff who understand their own organisation better than they did.

What this looks like in practice

Microsoft UK. A report identifying 30 one-minute stories led to two years as their CSR newshound, finding the proof buried across the UK business. Another project became a book of 19 partner success stories, launched at their Worldwide Partner Conference.

Stratus Technologies. ‘Hidden Heroes’: stories uncovering the stars of the company. They went down so well internally that the CEO extended them to the customer newsletters.

Ormiston Families. Impact stories and the Brighter Futures strategic report, turning lived experience into stories funders can connect with.

See the work →

‘After witnessing the types of messages and stories Nicki unearthed in the research project I commissioned whilst Director of Citizenship for Microsoft UK… I recommissioned her as an internal newshound… we knew Nicki and trusted her ability to find golden seeds in the most unlikely places, to plant them in a way which would engage our intended audience and to do so quickly and consistently.’ Bronwyn Kunhardt, former Director of Citizenship, Microsoft UK

Got reports or newsletters drafted with AI? Bring them. We’ll find the stories they missed.