You may know a bit about who we are as an organisation. You might know our mission is to create safer places. But what about those behind this work? In this blog series, we'll introduce some of the staff members working behind the scenes. Our first post features Adam Graver, our Digital Marketing Officer, who's responsible for bringing our work to life across our digital channels.
Can you tell us about your role at Thirtyone:eight in the Marketing and Communications team?
My current role is Digital Marketing Officer, which I do full time – but that’s not how I started.
I joined at the start of 2020 – yes, that year! My first role was a Digital Marketing Assistant – a brand new role, the first of its kind dedicated to looking after our social media channels and developing our digital content. It was a two-day per week role that complemented my three-day per week internship at my local church. As time went on, my role expanded significantly, resulting in me moving first to three days per week, then to five. As my hours increased, I adopted the slightly different title of Digital Marketing Officer.
In my time at Thirtyone:eight, our social media audience has grown significantly. In particular, our Instagram channel has almost tripled in number of followers. Projects I’ve been most proud of have been being part of pioneering our new eLearning courses, as well as playing a central part in the development of our new website which launched in March 2022.
Can you share some of your story so far? What work were you involved in before joining Thirtyone:eight?
After graduating in 2019 with a Theology and Worship degree, I moved to Kent to fulfil a one-year internship at a local Anglican church. This gave me a wealth of on the ground experience in church leadership, including youth work and worship. During lockdown, I had to develop our recording, production and distribution of online church worship materials. Upon finishing the internship, I took on the role of Worship and Media Leader, assuming responsibility of the worship team and creative output of the church – a role which I had until I moved to working full time at Thirtyone:eight.
What inspired you to join Thirtyone:eight?
The correct answer would be that I was inspired by the mission and goals of the charity, but that wasn’t the original inspiration to join Thirtyone:eight. That would come later.
Ever since I was in school, I've been highly active on social media. It’s a way I’ve used to express myself – to highlight my beliefs, as an outlet for my passion for photography, to keep up on what’s going on in the world or simply to have a laugh with friends. When a friend at the charity highlighted the role to me, I thought it would be a great part-time role to channel some of my creative energy and develop new skills, as well as financially support myself.
As I spent more time in the charity and learned more about why safeguarding is so important, I’ve been inspired to be part of sharing this message with society. As I’ve alluded to already, my faith is incredibly important to me and having the opportunity to work for a Christian charity supporting churches and organisations is a real blessing.
What do you like most about your job?
It’s a bit of a cliché, but in marketing no two days are the same – and no two projects are the same either. In my time at Thirtyone:eight I’ve had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects – from the day-to-day production of social media content to eLearning videos, website development, podcasts and representing the charity at events. If I had to choose my favourite project, it would have to be Safeguarding Sunday 2020.
During lockdown, while most churches were still meeting virtually, we decided to produce our own Safeguarding Sunday service for people to engage with on social media. As part of that, I was tasked with creating a cross-departmental worship video, which married my passion for worship and media with my developing skills in marketing. Opportunities for creativity are what gets me out of bed in the morning, and I’m fortunate to have many in my role.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
A typical workday is fulfilling the needs of the task that is in front of me! That may sound vague, but it entirely depends on the projects at hand.
Recently, my focus has been social media as we develop our output – looking at ways to offer more value to our followers, as well as tracking our KPIs and honing in on our branding.
I’ve also been able to invest more time in training and development. Most recently, I did a course on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – which is all about optimising website content to be found more easily in search engines.
Are you reading anything interesting right now? What's your takeaway from it?
I’m unashamedly a Christian of the more charismatic persuasion. And by charismatic I more mean in terms of theology and practice rather than being especially charming, though my wife may say otherwise.
I’m reading a book by Michael Koulianos – founder and pastor of a church called Jesus Image in Orlando, Florida. The book is entitled ‘Holy Spirit: The One Who Makes Jesus Real’ and it’s essentially about the transformative power of the Holy Spirit in the day to day lives of Christians, which in my mind qualifies as ‘interesting’. I’m not very good at finishing books or setting aside regular time to read (aside from my daily Bible reading time), but I’m confident this book may have gripped me enough for me to finish it.
Written by Adam Graver.
Find out more about our staff and trustees: Our people | Thirtyone:eight (thirtyoneeight.org)