Les Bourgs Hospice – New Children’s Shop Opening
Supporting the grand opening of a children’s charity shop at Oatlands, Guernsey
Service areas: Social media
Campaign length: September – October 2026
The brief
Les Bourgs Hospice decided to open a new children's shop at Oatlands Village. The objectives were to raise awareness to islanders and to encourage them to donate quality pre-loved toys, books and clothes at a series of Drop Off Days. We were also asked to find creative ways to support their volunteer drive so the shop remains open consistently.
Children remained at the heart of this project, so our first job was to establish a brand narrative which would speak to them as well as parents and guardians. Our role was to translate how to donate and buy and understand the importance of supporting Les Bourgs and (age-appropriate) hospice care.
Success meant strong awareness among local families, children feeling empowered to support charity, a well-stocked shop on opening day and a reliable volunteer team behind it.
What Black Vanilla did
- Developed a campaign strategy, key messages and creative direction, built around pre-existing key messages Black Vanilla helped develop earlier in the year. These were: "Powered by our community" and "Helping make care happen".
- Created Les Bourgs Little Heroes, a child-friendly campaign that encourages children to become "heroes" by donating and choosing pre-loved.
- Worked with a local designer to produce Little Heroes branding and collateral, including posters, donation checklists and stickers for children who donate.
- Planned and delivered 38 posts across Facebook and Instagram, mixing behind-the-scenes content, donor stories, volunteer profiles and general information in the form of images, graphics and short-form video.
- The content focused on authentic narratives, including current volunteers and real families who show how they select and donate their pre-loved items.
- Measured performance against SMART KPIs and shared recommendations for the next phase.
The impact
- 188,000+ views across the campaign, almost four times the 50,000 awareness target.
- 52,269 views and 3,947 engagements on donation content, beating the views target and achieving around 16 times the engagement goal.
- 41,000+ video views, four times the target, with 58.8% of Facebook page views coming from non-followers, taking the shop well beyond the hospice's existing audience.
- Ten new volunteers signed up during the campaign, meeting the recruitment target, and high-quality donations were received throughout the Drop Off Days.
- A well-stocked shop was able to open on Thursday 1 October, with a queue of customers waiting outside on opening day.
Why it worked
We put people at the centre of every message. Instead of leading with announcements, we wrapped practical details like dates and what to donate inside real stories about volunteers, donors, little heroes and the shop coming together.
We used Facebook as the main channel because it's where Guernsey families go for local information, and it delivered 94% of total views. Our strongest asset, a behind-the-scenes video of the final donation sort, worked across both platforms and showed the community what their support was building, yielding 250 reactions on Facebook and 66 likes on Instagram.
Get in touch to find out more about our social media offerings by contacting krista@black-vanilla.co.uk