Finding the Words: Helping Critical Support Tell Its Story Online

Critical Support has spent five years getting very good at moving fast – rescuing surplus food, getting meals to people who need them, opening doors to families in crisis. What it hadn’t had time to build was a clear, consistent way of telling that story online. Through Link UP London, that gap became the starting point for a project that ended up reaching well beyond a strategy document.

About the Organisation

Born in March 2020 to feed NHS staff during the pandemic, Critical Support has since evolved into a food redistribution charity tackling waste and hunger across South West London, supporting 30 partner charities and reaching over 8,500 people a week alongside running emergency housing for families fleeing the war in Ukraine.

The Challenge

Rapid growth had outpaced the charity’s communications. Critical Support had a powerful story hundreds of thousands of meals delivered, lives changed but no real framework for deciding who to talk to, what to say, or where to say it. Funders, food suppliers, charity partners, volunteers, and trustees were all hearing slightly different, slightly inconsistent versions of the same mission.

What the team needed wasn’t more content. It was a strategy: a way of mapping stakeholder needs, auditing what already existed across the website and social channels, and benchmarking against the best in the sector – so that every future post and pitch could pull in the same direction.

The Skilled Volunteer

Sarah Farrow took on the brief.

Communications is Sarah’s trade – she’s spent her career helping organisations, from individual campaigners to senior leadership teams, say what they mean clearly and consistently, work recognised in 2025 when she was named Gallagher’s Internal Communications Leader of the Year.

She brought that same rigour to Critical Support: mapping out stakeholder groups, auditing the existing digital presence, and helping the team build what became a clearly defined single-minded proposition and a structured message house – the kind of foundational tools that make every piece of future content easier to write and more consistent to read.

The project didn’t stop at strategy. Sarah went on to volunteer her time supporting Critical Support’s first major fundraising event, a celebrity comedy night that drew over 200 guests and raised more than £20,000. Taking on everything from communications and branding to volunteer coordination and payment systems.

Sarah reflected on the experience:

“Volunteering for Critical Support through Link UP London is one of the best things I’ve ever done. Being able to use my professional skills to support a small charity in London is incredibly fulfilling. For anyone looking for a way to give back to their community using their professional skills, I would recommend becoming a skilled volunteer through Link UP London”

The Impact

The clarity Sarah brought has changed how the team thinks about its own story.

“Sarah Farrow has been instrumental in helping us review and strengthen our online presence. She provided a clear framework that enabled us to assess, challenge, and refine our existing content and messaging. As a result, we now have a strong understanding of our future roadmap, a clearly defined single-minded proposition, and a well-structured message house.”

That framework is already expected to pay off in very practical terms. With sharper, more consistent messaging, Critical Support anticipates communicating more effectively with the stakeholders who matter most to its future – particularly funders – and using that improved engagement to grow its funding base.

The charity was quick to credit the partnership itself, not just the deliverable:

“We are extremely grateful to Link UP London for connecting us with such a skilled and dedicated volunteer. Sarah has been an absolute pleasure to work with – proactive, insightful, and fully committed to supporting our mission. She not only led the project brief around our digital presence and messaging, but also helped us understand the rationale behind the changes and guided us in building a more effective communications strategy.”

That trust has grown into something longer-term: Critical Support has indicated Sarah may join as a Trustee, extending a three-month strategy project into an ongoing role in the charity’s future.

Looking Forward

Critical Support now holds something it didn’t have before: a roadmap for how to talk about its own work, and the confidence to use it. For a charity built on responding quickly to crisis after crisis, that clarity is its own kind of infrastructure – one that will help it bring in the funding, partners, and volunteers needed to keep redistributing food and offering shelter for years to come.