Ellen Manning

On a voluntary basis, freelance journalist and PR consultant Ellen Manning has used all her experience, skills and media contacts to mastermind the exponential growth in the public’s awareness of Band of Builders (BoB) – an award-winning charity that completes practical projects to help members of the UK construction industry who are battling illness or injury.

She has told the story of how BoB was born when, in 2016, its founder took to social media to ask for help renovating the home of a close friend and colleague who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Since then, the charity has completed more than 35 projects, and Ellen’s masterplan has been focused on telling the human-interest story at the heart of each project that BoB carries out – where volunteers come together to help their fellow tradespeople through renovations or repairs that make a real difference to their lives.

Ellen has overseen the growth of a small comms team within BoB. Under her guidance, BoB secured more than 1,100 pieces of trade, regional, national and international news coverage in 2023 about the charity. The advertising value equivalent of that media coverage was in excess of £18m.