A Moment With… Lucie Brooke

Free2B Alliance is a London based community organisation, supporting LGBTQ+ young people and their parents. Founded by Lucie Brooke and Nicki Ryan, Free2B provides 1:1 and group services in schools and in the community, as well as offering LGBTQ+ awareness training to organisations to promote inclusivity.

Celebrating their 5th birthday this year, Lucie shares Free2B’s greatest achievements, discusses the challenges of running a non-profit and how their rebrand (part of TMC’s Not-for-Profit initiative) is a game changer in terms of building recognition for the work they do and adding value to their reputation.

What inspired you to start Free2B and grow this community?
We had been running The Gap LGBTQ+ youth club for 5 years and as the membership grew, we experienced a huge increase in young people needing more intensive support, as well as their parents contacting us and professionals seeking guidance.

Myself and my co-founder Nicki realised there was no way we could support the level of need via a weekly youth club and so we took the decision to launch Free2B and expand our role to support the LGBTQ+ community.

What are the challenges you face on a day to day basis – both from running a non-profit point of view and the work that you do?
The biggest organisational challenge is always finding funding to ensure we can continue to deliver our support services. The process of applying for grants is a constant cycle of identifying grants we are eligible for, applying often via lengthy and complicated application processes, awaiting the outcomes and therefore trying to time the bids to ensure there are no gaps in funding, and if successful there is an ongoing process of monitoring and evaluation so it’s very labour intensive.

In terms of our day to day work supporting LGBTQ+ young people and their parents, a constant challenge is trying to tackle discrimination experienced by the LGBTQ+ community. Whether that’s a lack of awareness from a professional leading to poor practice right through to outright homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. We’ve had a professional walk out of our awareness training because they didn’t “agree” with our message of an LGBTQ+ inclusive environment. That is hard to take and even harder knowing that this is what young people face daily and often don’t have the voice to challenge it. So, in that sense, it is both challenging but also a constant motivation to keep going.

What do you love about running Free2B?
Most of my role is ‘behind the scenes’ dealing with the administration of running the organisation, so for me I love working directly with our young people and especially with our Rainbow Power Youth Council. I particularly enjoy it when we are working on a specific project and I get to see it develop from the concept stage through to the outcome. The grant funding application process can take its toll and so it’s great to focus on the actual projects (that the funding allows). My absolute favourite is our annual impact survey because it’s always so wonderful to hear from our members in their own words, what Free2B means to them.

We’ve had a professional walk out of our awareness training because they didn’t “agree” with our message of an LGBTQ+ inclusive environment. That is hard to take and even harder knowing that this is what young people face daily and often don’t have the voice to challenge it.

What is Free2B’s greatest achievement so far?
There have been many wonderful and positive moments, but I think the stand-out for me is the launch and subsequent success of our youth council Rainbow Power. The kids are simply amazing – giving up their time to attend weekly council meetings to improve the lives of their peers. They have attended our Directors meeting to support our strategic development, they have developed social action projects, volunteered their time at Free2B events, helped deliver training and they are currently working on creating resources to encourage professionals to be more LGBTQ+ inclusive. Four of the members are also part of a UK-wide youth advisory group exploring ways to improve youth mental health.

What does 2020 look like for Free2B and what plans do you have?
2020 is a big year for us – Free2B will be 5 years old and The Gap LGBTQ+ youth club (where it all began) will be 10! So, there will be celebrations a plenty!

We have also just finalised our 5-year growth strategy with input from our Rainbow Power youth council and parents and we have identified 3 key aims:
Mental Health: Improve wellbeing outcomes through responsive LGBTQ+ provisions
Reach: Provide LGBTQ+ safe spaces to enable community participation
Education: Increase local community engagement through training
The first step in January will be a move to a larger office (remaining in the same wonderful community centre) and we will be expanding our small team by recruiting two part-time workers.
We will also be unveiling our new website led by the amazing team at Toby Marsh Creative to help us promote and champion our work.

As a charity you have limited resources, how do you let people know about the work you do?
We initially focused on expanding our existing network links, as both myself and Nicki have worked within the borough of Wandsworth for many years. Neither of us has marketing experience and so it has been a real challenge to move beyond our contacts and it’s the reason we reached out for guidance. We had a basic website using a template package and a ‘pic ‘n’ mix’ of homemade flyers but up until now we have found (not surprisingly) that individuals and organisations contacting us are generally through existing contacts and recommendations.

You have just worked with TMC on a rebrand of Free2B, why did you decide that now was the time to evolve the branding?
We have long been keen to expand beyond our existing networks and have really struggled to achieve this. We have three quite disparate audiences: youth, parents and professionals and have never known how best to target our promotions and website in a way that would be appealing to all three groups. As we moved towards our 5th birthday and developed our 5-year growth strategy we recognised that we needed professional guidance to support us achieve a solid brand identity.

What were your aims and desires for the rebrand? And how do you think these have been achieved?
We really wanted a solid brand identity that would work across our three audiences. Our existing promotional materials are all so different you would struggle to realise they are all from the same organisation and so we were looking for something that would be recognisably ‘Free2B’. TMC have delivered this beyond all of our expectations! They have created a series of illustrations which denote ‘youth’, ‘parents’ and our ‘training’ for our organisations. We now have a clearly defined colour palette which includes our organisation’s main colour ‘Proud Purple’ and a colour for each of our three service areas. We also now have a flyer template which we have been able to use to update all of our resources. It’s so simple, the template can be easily used for any one-off events or projects as well as our main services – we just need to drop in the appropriate illustration and service area colour and we’re away!

We have always taken a members-led approach, responding to needs and co-creating solutions with our members so that it’s very much a partnership.

You involved a lot of the kids and parents that are part of Free2B in the rebrand process, why was it important to involve them?
Free2B was set up to support young people and their parents and so they are central to everything we do. We have always taken a members-led approach, responding to needs and co-creating solutions with our members so that it’s very much a partnership. It made perfect sense to take the same approach to the rebrand, ensuring that our members’ voices were at the heart of our new image.

How do you think the new branding will help you move Free2B forwards?
The rebrand has given us a clear identity which will help us as we grow, ensuring we are recognisable across our different audiences. It has also provided us with a professional brand and will therefore help us move away from the ‘home-made’ feel that is so often associated with very small voluntary sector groups. This will be especially relevant in the growth of our training service and will help reassure organisations who book our training that they are dealing with a viable company.

What’s the best piece of advice you have been given?
Think ahead!

In the first few years of Free2B our focus has been on securing project funds to be able to launch our 1:1 mentoring service and parent support. All of our energies have been directed towards the development of our services and providing support. The best advice we’ve received from larger organisations supporting our development and from TMC during the rebrand, is to think ahead – strategic planning is essential to ensure we continue to grow and therefore reach more young people and parents and train more organisations.

View Free2B’s full rebrand project here

To discover more about the work Free2B do and the services they offer visit their website