Crews for a Cause: Redefining success

Every day, charities around the world are working to make a difference for the causes they serve. Their success often depends on the philanthropy of others – but how can they succeed without more awareness from the general public? That’s where Crews for a Cause comes in. 

Based in California, Crews for a Cause is a 100% volunteer run, non-profit production group made up of production assistants, producers, makeup artists, directors, cinematographers and everyone in between. They specialise in creating short form video content for great causes who need to tell their story but who lack the financial freedom to commission such work. 

Their goal is to bring together passionate and empowered entertainment professionals to produce, film and edit videos benefiting good causes and people in need – at little or no cost to them.

The ask

There were two elements to our work with Crews:

• Strategic planning: Helping them clarify where they are going and how they’re going to get there

• Comms strategy: Adding some firepower to their external comms activity, particularly in helping their charity clients to better publicise their films

How did we go about it?

We spent time on video calls getting to know and understand the three energetic and highly capable founders. Having done that, and gained their confidence, we asked lots of questions with a view to getting our own minds clear about their direction of travel. We took an agile approach based on regular review and feedback with the team. We started by working through Crews’ mission, vision and values before looking at their strategic goals and creating an action plan covering what it would take to achieve them. 

On the comms front, collaborative conversations also led the way. We scoped out the issue before sharing our guidance on the best approach. In this case, that was to engage an experienced comms professional in our network who shared their expert insights with Crews, to help them develop their comms strategy further.

Putting our philosophy into action

One complaint we hear a lot about consultants working in the charitable space, is that they can be formulaic. That’s the last thing we want to be. We’re never imposed on our clients, for example as part of a grants package, and so we’re always willingly received and have the freedom to work in a way that will best deliver our client’s outcomes. We think that makes a difference. 

As Katy Brown, our MD, puts it:

“We always say that everything begins with a conversation. In the case of our work with Crews, the conversations could not have been easier. The team was so ready to engage, so enthusiastic about what they do and the support they need, and so open-minded and flexible about our suggestions and questions - it was a real pleasure to be involved. They are all volunteers who care deeply about the causes they support, they’re original and creative and most importantly, they give voices to those communities who need it most. We just hope that we’ve been able to make a small contribution to achieving their future goals.”

The proof of the pudding 

Judging by the feedback from the Crews founders, the enjoyment was mutual, and the value delivered from Skylark’s involvement was real. Steve Kaufman, Crews’ co-founder, had this to say:

“To be honest, we had no idea what to expect from this Oxford University spin out, as we’re a very small California-based non-profit. Right from the start, they made us feel so much bigger, diving right into our goals and how we planned to achieve them. Communication with them was a breeze and it was easy to have meaningful and in-depth conversations about our goals and aspirations. Katy took time to sit with us and truly understand who we are and what drives us at a core level. That made all future conversations even more fruitful.”

Fellow Crews founder, Max Rosenfeld, was impressed with Skylark’s ability to bring new ideas to the table. 

“Skylark’s knowledge in this sector really aided us in thinking about things in ways we hadn’t before. Every conversation brought to mind new ways of thinking about how we operate and ways of achieving our goals. They’ve even gone as far as to consider and connect us with experts inside their vast network to lift up areas we felt were lacking and needed guidance - in our case it’s our external communication. Working with Skylark has really expanded what we thought was possible for our organisation.”

And for Stebs Schinnerer, Crews’ third co-founder, it was Skylark’s ability to both look at the big picture and dive into the detail that stood out. 

“Skylark has opened our eyes to a new way of thinking about what success really means. 

Skylark helped us dissect and organise our thoughts and goals in a way that allowed us to see value in shedding unnecessary practices and focus more acutely on achievable and impactful ones. They’ve helped us to re-prioritise our goals to achieve maximum efficiency during our growth. 

Working with Skylark has given us an opportunity to take a step back from what we’ve been doing and to re-organise our thoughts and processes to be more efficient in our business model.”

More about Crews for a Cause

You can find out more about Crews for a Cause, and the organisations they have supported, here. 

Working with Skylark

We hope that everyone who works with us will have a Crews experience – where we deliver work that’s valuable but also enjoyable and meaningful.

We’re only a call or email away. We’d really love to hear from anyone who thinks we could help and from anyone who thinks they might like to support us!