“We had already done quite a bit of thinking about how digital was fundamentally changing our strategic context. We had made a substantial commitment to make our communications and fundraising digital first. What could employing a consultant possibly add?
“Alison brought a huge breadth of strategic voluntary sector digital experience and an outsider’s eye to help us sharpen our understanding of our situation. She provided a framework and rigour to ensure we challenged ourselves to deliver a programme that was truly transformational rather than just a step change. She saw connections where we discrete projects defined by internal structures. She helped us create a real roadmap for digital transformation rather than simply doing more digital work.”
Brendan Paddy, Director of Communications, Disasters Emergency Commission
“I brought MC2 in to support us in developing a digital roadmap for Sightsavers.
“Ali has a gift for getting to the heart of a brief, grasping the situation and understanding the key issues quickly. She asked great questions, had lots of ideas, gave us plenty of spot-on practical guidance, and most importantly was liked and respected by all the stakeholders involved in the project.
“I would have no hesitation in recommending Ali and look forward to working with her again.”
Emily Munford, Director of Marketing and Digital, Sightsavers
“I have worked with MC2 on a number of pieces of work that feed into our long term digital strategy, including recent social media strategy and UX projects. I thoroughly enjoy working with MC2 and see them as an extension of our digital team – they are always supportive, approachable and an absolute pleasure to work with. And what they don’t know about digital both inside and outside of the charity sphere isn’t worth knowing about!”
Sam McKenna, Head of Digital, MS Society
“Alison is the best digital consultant I’ve worked with. Whilst no detail’s too small to escape her eye she takes a strategic approach to the work she does, and always with an eye (or rather both eyes!) to the future. I know from my time as a colleague of hers right through to the present that her service orientation, born of a genuine desire to help and to get great results, is first rate.
“She combines creativity, flair and real intuition about users’s needs in a way that I admire enormously. And, working with her is a pleasure.”
Anne Clifford, Marketing Director, The Children’s Society
“We Are MC2 is a dream consultancy for third sector clients. My experience has been great; the solutions that have come out of working together have been instrumental in shaping not only the tech but also the governance going forward for future development, I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending this great agency.
“Alison as owner has direct charity experience, understands how to navigate cultural nuances and often the lack of understanding of how digital could work for you. Alison has a blend of technical experience and knowledge of the latest trends offering impartial advice and not delivering back the latest fad, or repurposing a solution already implemented elsewhere.
“Pricing is transparent, very competitive and you get a real sense that Alison only delivers what she considers to be the best solution for your brief, sometimes a full and frank conversation is needed to get the approach and delivery right; this is embraced as part of the process, the quality and the delivery of the solution is directly proportionate to this carefully crafted input to understand what problem exists to be solved.”
Coral Stanion-Nazeri, Digital Communications Manager, Action For Children
“We commissioned We Are MC2 to develop a digital strategy and roadmap for the Alzheimer’s Society. We needed to review our existing digital work and come up with a programme that would reflect our desire to grow not only our digital presence but increase the sophistication with which we could deliver work. We Are MC2 worked from a really solid base of quantitative and qualitative research to devise a strategic programme that would deliver growth and change. We collaboratively developed a new ethos for digital and a set of filters for us to review the projects coming into the programme by. This set of filters, along with estimated costs, allowed us to have a very informed debate within the Senior Leadership Team about our ambitions and our existing resource.
Alison Cook, Marketing Director, Alzheimer’s Society (September 2014)
“I worked with Alison during the merger of Help the Aged and Age Concern, to form Age UK… heralded as the biggest charity merger of the decade. Alison was responsible for merging 300 websites (with 300 different ‘owners’) into one… for the maximum benefit of all. This required great technical skill under enormous timing and budget pressure. But it also needed great diplomacy and pragmatism (a skill I lack and greatly admire!) to ensure that all parties understood that the end result would benefit everyone.
“Alison achieved that with ease. That would have been enough through a merger… to get to the other side ‘safely’ but she strived to introduce new areas of delivery, new audiences, and new ways of getting out our message. She’s a breath of fresh air in a cloud of ‘smoke and mirrors’ that current surrounds the digital world.”
Lisa McCormack (no relation!), Marketing Director, Age UK
“I started working with Alison and We Are MC2 in the middle of 2013. We were looking for an experienced and innovative digital thinker to work alongside our small in house digital team on a range of projects to transform our digital platform and the way we work as an organisation. Drinkaware is already the destination of choice for people considering their drinking, but now we want to enhance our offering to really empower and enable people to optimise their wellbeing by using the optimum mix of technology, data and marketing that is now available.
“Such a programme requires innovative thinking and significant changes to ways of working and even organisational structure. As Head of Digital, I wanted to work collaboratively with a strategist who has the right mix of experience, who has the ability to apply creative thinking to complex challenges and the know how to drive this thinking through to action. My experience of working with Alison and MC2 is that they tick all these boxes and then some.”
Ben Butler, Head of Digital, Drinkaware
“Alison is a sounding block. Very good head on her shoulders with loads of experience.”
Said Dajani, Digital Manager, Alzheimer’s Society
“We hired Alison to help us review and audit our current digital position, and to provide recommendations that could be taken forward into a digital strategy.
“But Alison delivered so much more than this. Her passion is undeniable. Her knowledge is unquestionable. She rolled her sleeves up and relished the challenge. And most importantly, I loved working with her. She is a great sounding board, and very pragmatic in her approach.
“I would not hesitate to recommend Alison, and I look forward to working with her again in the future”
Karen Bowen, Digital Manager, Guide Dogs for the Blind