Internal communications and capacity building
We implement systems, technologies, and processes to build efficient and connected teams who confidently and consistently communicate with each other and on behalf of their organisations.
Donor communications and fundraising strategy
We steward the right relationships based on shared beliefs by personalising sustainable funding solutions, formulating successful ‘asks’ and balancing the exchange between benefactor and beneficiary.
External stakeholder communications
We reach and engage key audiences and compel them to act, by taking an evidence-based approach, and aligning communications and business objectives.
James Mattison, Partner
James is a creative director with over twenty years of experience in brand communications and strategy, serving both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors across Africa, UK, US and the Middle East. James has advised numerous organisations during that time, including Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar Foundation, Centre for Entrepreneurs, the END Fund, Freedom Fund and Luminos Fund.
Michael Stojkovic, Partner
Michael is a marketing and business growth professional and a passionate digital marketer with sixteen years of experience working alongside entrepreneurs in Africa, Australia and the Middle East. Michael has helped launch over 25 businesses, most recently strengthening the business environment in Ethiopia and furthering his belief that for-profit businesses are crucial to international development.
Luisa Stojkovic, Partner
Luisa is a communications professional with a decade of experience in key messaging, content creation, leadership development and donor engagement in the philanthropic and financial sectors across Africa, the UK and the UAE. She has worked alongside organisations such as the END Fund, Geneva Global, Freedom Fund, Legatum Foundation and the Luminos Fund.
Jonathan Bii, Communications Manager
Jonathan is a communications manager and a native Swahili speaker with more than five years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Prior to Magnia, he was the Communications Manager at Book Bunk. His areas of expertise include strategic communication, brand building, social media strategy, content generation, and editorial work.
Jeanna Buck-Simpson, Consultant
Jeanna is a Public Relations specialist with experience managing and executing long-term strategy and advocacy campaigns for clients across the public policy, healthcare, finance, and social sectors. Jeanna has worked with VOX Global, Convé Communications and KCD PR Inc and started her career in the U.S. Congress.
Addisalem Kiros, Senior Graphic Designer
Addi is a graphic designer with six years of experience. After completing her four-year degree programme with a Bachelor of Fine Art and Design, she joined Ethiopian Airlines. Since then, she has worked with some of Ethiopia’s leading advertising and communication agencies.
To attract the right partners, drive awareness and catalyse impact, our experience has shown us that brand trust is paramount. By aligning teams on a single source of truth, we achieve this by implementing clear, consistent and authentic communication.
Define the vision
We get under the skin of your organisation and help you think big and reach your business goals by providing the space for audacious ideas and offering frameworks for new thinking.
Construct the strategy
Equipped with a deeper understanding of your organisation and its objectives, we collaborate with your team to create clear and comprehensive communication strategies, goals and KPIs.
Implement the systems
Whether you have an in-house team, preferred suppliers or require us to help you source and vet new partners, we provide an effortless transition from strategy to implementation.
The five key principles that inform the Magnia method
- Growth is accelerated when business objectives and communications strategies are aligned
- Brand trust is built through consistency, clarity and authenticity
- The key to stewarding and diversifying a network of funders and partners is a clear understanding of their challenges, needs and motivations
- Our results are only sustainable if we leave our client’s internal teams stronger, more efficient and better informed than when we met them
- Our industry, and that of our clients, evolves quickly. Only through effective measurement, analysis and adaptation can we continue to improve
Organisations choose to partner with us because they seek collaborators who truly understand their vision for transformative change in the world and the context they operate within.
With our on-the-ground presence and our genuine commitment to the development sector, we become valuable allies in achieving their goals and delivering excellence.
Our clients often find themselves at pivotal stages in their journey, making critical decisions. In these moments, we offer the necessary guidance, processes and support to help them navigate the path forward successfully.
We enjoy working with teams of all sizes, from community-based organisations that are responding to and transforming their communities to national and international changemakers tackling significant global challenges.
Who we work alongside:
- Nonprofit organisations
- Non-governmental organisations
- Charitable trusts
- Social enterprises
- Corporate foundations and CSR initiatives
- Private foundations
- Family Offices
- Governmental aid organisations
- Social impact investing ventures
- Non-profit investment funds
- Pooled grantmaking organisations
Local creatives
We are committed to partnering with in-country communications professionals in the regions in which we work. We connect them with our clients to ensure work is being developed from a local perspective.
We have seen how this creates new opportunities, addresses unemployment rates and builds local capacity. We have also seen how happy it makes our clients and the incredible results it produces.
We are currently building a directory of in-country communications professionals across African and Middle Eastern countries and continue to form new relationships.
Ben BolgerCo-founder, Squirrel Education
We are impressed with Magnia’s commitment to its values as a business. They are passionate about working with socially minded companies and that passion floods through in their work. They really get to know what you are trying to achieve and how you operate as a business so that they can clearly communicate that to all external stakeholders.
Katherine PotaskiChief Advancement Officer, SHOFCO
Magnia brings a deep passion for development combined with a high level of detail and responsiveness. The team distinguishes itself by its dynamic, fast-moving nature. They are able to pivot and adapt in just the same way SHOFCO does in our work on the ground.
In our fast-moving digital world, the gap between international, heavily-funded organisations and those locally led and based, particularly those led by women and people of colour, is growing. On the other side, donors are hurriedly looking for ways to measure and improve their impact to ensure the world’s SDGs are reached, climate change is managed and global poverty is remedied. With fresh eyes and new thinking, many changemakers are turning to hybrid models and seeking to create change through innovative social enterprises that tackle global challenges.
Through its darkest days, the COVID-19 pandemic, stalled much of the social impact sector’s progress. To survive, grantors and grantees had to adapt and evolve if they had the means to do so. The digital world has become more powerful than ever before.
In 2021, this was the context that stood before our founding partners. We experienced the economic effects of the pandemic first-hand. It gave us time to reflect and better understand how we could create more value in an area we were passionate about and were experts in. Whilst the world was going through change, we saw a tremendous opportunity to help organisations across the social impact sector recover and improve. The pandemic highlighted the necessity of creating and securing a clear, consistent, proven, and authentic brand; this is where we could step in.
During the height of the pandemic, our founding partner, Michael, had been working in Ethiopia with a local entrepreneur to create and launch new business opportunities. He was inspired by the perseverance he saw around him and the power that business had on the economic development of the region.
Our other founding partners, James and Luisa, total twenty years of experience working with investors, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs to build brands and launch inspiring initiatives.
Together, we wanted to do more to create impact, especially after seeing how the pandemic had affected individuals and businesses in our wider network.
Today, the Magnia team is growing, and so is our geographical footprint and the impact we are magnifying.