“Signal AI’s ability to process and analyze global media sources in real-time provides us with crucial, context-rich insights.” - Kai Akram, Head of Media, Amnesty UK
Amnesty International is the world’s largest global human rights organization. With over 10 million supporters, the organization works to protect people's rights wherever justice, freedom, truth, and dignity are denied. Amnesty’s mission is to improve attitudes toward human rights. To drive this mission forward with powerful storytelling, Kai Akram, the Head of Media at Amnesty International in the UK, spearheads media monitoring, public relations, and communications strategy.
For Amnesty, media monitoring doesn’t mean just reporting on Amnesty’s or their CEO’s media mentions—but more importantly, staying aware of key human rights issues that can change within the hour. Proving media impact is imperative to secure more funding, allowing them to continue their critical human rights work. Akram explains, “Amnesty’s supporters and donors are looking for measurable impact from our human rights campaigns. There’s a demand for storytelling that highlights real change and shows the value of their contributions.”
Challenge: Real-time issues need real-time insights
Before partnering with Signal AI, the Amnesty UK team’s previous solution offered slow and manual media monitoring and reporting methods. Akram needed a more data-driven and efficient way to prove the team’s impact.
Key Challenges:
- Slow, Manual Processes: Reporting often lagged by 2-3 days, slowing Amnesty’s communications response and media engagement. Mention reports were produced manually, requiring the team to conduct Google searches for up-to-date media insights.
- Limited Scope: Needed the ability to track a broader scope of spokespeople, target media outlets, peer organizations, sector trends, key regions, campaign coverage, and audience responses.
- Stakeholder Reporting: Wanted to quickly and accurately answer the most pressing questions on media impact from supporters, donors, and C-suite leadership.
"The biggest thing for me was real-time coverage—we didn’t have that before," explained Akram. “Because everything was produced manually, we would get them two or three days later, so we would still always have to do Google searches. For an organization like Amnesty, we need something within the hour.”
Solution: Signal AI’s ‘savvy’ approach
“Signal AI gives me all of the data in one place. It’s a system that helps me navigate throughout my day with whatever I need.” - Kai Akram, Amnesty UK
Signal AI’s Web App offers real-time media monitoring and configurable dashboards rich with data that help Amnesty stay ahead of trending topics in the charity sector, benchmark against fellow non-profits, influence Communications strategy, and build confidence in reporting winning results to C-level stakeholders.
Why Signal AI is a head above competitors:
- AI-Powered Data Analysis: Amnesty now analyzes media impact quickly and accurately, helping to refine Comms strategies and better connect with target audiences.
- Competitor & Industry Intelligence: Offers ability to benchmark against top charities and competitor spokespeople via configured Dashboards.
- Flexible & User-Friendly: Signal's intuitive interface makes tracking and reporting on audience reach, share of voice, and messaging trends across key regions, topics, and spokespersons easy.
- Partnership Approach: Signal AI conducts seamless onboarding with a dedicated account manager, personalized training sessions, setup assistance, and ongoing optimizations.
“I like the way Signal AI operates,” explained Akram. “It’s fast-paced. It gives me all of the data in one place. It’s a system that helps me navigate throughout my day with whatever I need.” Kai adds, “The dashboards definitely save me some time because it's so easy and user-friendly with the charts and graphics.”
While the innovative data is a value-add, Akram emphasized that the Customer Success team drove the solutions forward. “It’s always quite daunting to change from one system that a whole team is so used to,” Akram shared. "The onboarding team was enthusiastic and took it on a journey, which I really appreciated. I just knew they would go the extra mile to give us the support we need.”
Results: 4 Ways Amnesty Leverages Web App Dashboards
Amnesty International’s dedicated Account Manager, Tommy Carey, worked closely with Akram to build 12 flexible and purpose-built dashboards within the Web App. Each is tailored to track the media performance of the organization's different pillar program areas with their specific competitors, topics, and spokespeople. “That’s why I love working with Signal,” Kai shared. “I came to them with this challenge, and they built it with me within a couple of days.”
1. General Dashboard tracks 12 different company pillars to analyze coverage over time
After refining the highest priorities for Amnesty, the general Dashboard was built to track 15 internal spokespeople, outside influencers, politicians, 20+ media sources and outlets, and key topics over time. The team uses these dashboards for internal meetings and reviews, quarterly reports, and reporting to key stakeholders.
2. CEO dashboard rankings support data-driven C-level reporting
To support her goal of building out Amnesty’s executive leadership profile, Akram had the idea of reporting on how their CEO ranks among peers of other leading human rights and humanitarian charities in the UK, including Save The Children, Oxfam, ActionAid, and more. “If I have a meeting with the chief executive, I’ll go through the dashboard to look at where he's been mentioned so I can report back to him,” Kai explained. “I’m proud to share he ranks in the top spots.”
3. Charity Insights Meter allows Amnesty to benchmark messaging against 100+ non-profit organizations
The Charity Insights Meter allows the Amnesty team to show where Amnesty compares to the 100 top charities in the UK. “My favorite feature is the Charity Insights Meter. We don't have a competitive spirit with other organizations, as we all have one mission,” Kai added. “But it’s good to see where our messaging is landing compared to other organizations.”
4. Spokesperson dashboard highlights new opportunities for a more inclusive approach
One of Akram’s driving motivations is diversity, equity, and inclusion. With data to back up her strategy, Akram saw a challenge in reporting on and driving equal representation in Amnesty’s spokesperson coverage. “With our spokesperson dashboard, I can assess who's the most prominent in the media. I've identified there isn't a 50/50 gender split among our spokespeople. We need more women or non-binary people speaking on broadcast, for example. Because of that, I've started to develop a strategy to address it.”
“It’s important for people to see this representation,” Akram shared. “I can make this holistic change in my strategy by analyzing this data. I now have the insights to support a more inclusive approach.”
Impact: Amplifying Stories that Drive Change
‘Signal AI helps us evidence what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. The data definitely backs it up.’ - Kai Akram, Head of Media, Amnesty International, UK
Signal AI has proven to be a data-driven, innovative solution for Akram and her team to amplify the stories that drive global change. The dashboards help Akram answer questions coming in from all angles—from investors to leadership. Answering these questions, which once took days to track, now takes minutes.
Amnesty now has unprecedented visibility into its media performance; “I want to make sure my team is celebrating our achievements, and Signal AI gives us that,” Kai shared.
- Amnesty UK ranked #2 in media coverage among the top 100 UK charities for Q3 ‘24.
- Amnesty’s CEO ranked #1 in media coverage compared to 8 peers in leading UK humanitarian and human rights organizations for Q3 ‘24.
- Supporting DEI initiatives: Signal AI’s Dashboard analyzing Amnesty’s spokespeople helped Akram drive more spokesperson gender diversity in media mentions.
Amnesty’s Account Manager, Tommy Carey, plans to host more workshops to help promote widespread adoption across the international organization. Akram is on board. “What we have at the moment is great, and I know Signal AI has new savvy services to share, so I look forward to the updates.”