New Horizon Youth Centre x Havas UK

Client: New Horizon Youth Centre

Every year, thousands of young Londoners are pushed into homelessness and danger, that’s why New Horizon Youth Centre (NHYC) exists. We support people aged 16-24 to improve their housing, health, safety and life skills. As a small, frontline charity we struggled to prioritise our policy, comms and campaigning work, which was preventing us from taking part in the big system-wide changes we desperately need as a sector and as a society. Enter Havas UK, internationally renowned integrated marketing and communications company, who chose NHYC as their first ever Charity of the Year.

What began as a one-year pilot project turned into a multi-year collaboration, from a complete pro-bono rebrand to the biggest campaigning we’ve done in our 56-year history. A truly reciprocal partnership, the Havas team engaged with and learned from NHYC’s team and young people. Alongside financial contributions, the overwhelming benefit for NHYC has been the free access to Havas’ sector-leading expertise and skills, all together the partnership is valued at £500,000. NHYC enormously scaled up capacity, from digital design skills to strategy and campaigning. The benefits of this are felt across the whole organisation, making our work more accessible and impactful, and in turn, changing lives.