Head of communications co-ordination Tim Pemberton has been with the British Red Cross since 2001 and is responsible for managing the charity’s £500,000 annual print spend.

“We used to have an internal print buyer who worked with a fairly small roster of companies,” says Pemberton. “But, as our print volumes grew, we found the internal model wasn’t really giving us the flexibility we needed, and we started to look at costs a lot more.”

Ultimately, this led to the appointment of Swindon-based print management firm AccessPlus. “We thought outsourcing across the whole organisation would give us better value for money,” explains Pemberton.

Pemberton is responsible for sourcing a wide range of corporate and marketing print, including postcards, posters, market reports and first aid information. Run lengths vary from a few hundred to more than 100,000.

Most of the charity’s print is produced sheetfed litho, although some direct mail is web printed, with digital presses used for short-run, fast-turnaround work, such as emergency fundraising material.

Pemberton says: “Quick turnaround of short-run work is very important for us. For example, the Indonesian earthquake last year happened on a Saturday, and by Monday, we had the print ready in all of our UK premises, so the public could see that we had an appeal running.”

Pemberton is also responsible for online communications – an area he expects to grow.

He says: “Whether that will lead to less print, I don’t think so. In the future, I think we’ll look at all media channels, including podcasts, text and media messaging, rather than substituting one for another.”

BRITISH RED CROSS IN NUMBERS
Established 1870
Turnover £180m
Staff 3,200
Volunteers 32,513
Annual print spend £500,000
Print supplier AccessPlus
Source: British Red Cross