I went to see Selwyn Image, founder of UK branch of homeless charity Emmaus, receive his RSA medal last week. He gave an intriguing presentation about Emmaus’s 25 years in the UK and I was set to thinking, 25 years how come they have been here 25 years and I haven’t been aware of them? For background, Emmaus is France’s largest charity, it sets up autonomous working communities which recycle furniture, clothing, in fact pretty much all domestic discards. These communities give a roof, a job and most importantly self respect, to the homeless men and women who work in them. A brilliant formula, which tackles the causes of homelessness rather than just putting a roof over someone’s head without re-building their life. Better yet, they claim that for every £1000 invested, each community produces a social benefit valued at more than £10,000.

So with these numbers and a great model why are they all but invisible to the public? To me, and I do admit my bias here, it seems to lie in the answer to a question we are often asked “Why should charities need branding”? Sadly having a great mission, dedicated people and fantastic results simply isn’t enough in our era of constant media noise, you have to use the tools of marketing and branding to break through and be heard and to my knowledge they simply haven’t used those tools, certainly until the start of this year. Maybe Emmaus thought that because they and their founder, Abbé Pierre, were so well known in France – at least at the level of Oxfam or Shelter in the UK – that they just didn’t need the expense. A great shame because there should be 150 Emmaus communities here not the 20 or so that currently exist.