The founder of successful nine-year-old PR agency, MacComms has announced details of the upcoming launch of her second business, HelloHope.

Ellie MacDonald (pictured above) from Leeds has trained as a mental health and suicide prevention instructor trainer and is launching her Community Interest Company, HelloHope at a special event on the 23rd of May.

Having battled mental health issues and experienced the loss of her dad to suicide when she was just four years old, Ellie is channelling her pain into something positive to bring more hope to people at a time when it is needed most.

Ellie comments: “I grew up sad, angry, and confused by my dad’s suicide, nobody dared speak about it and so it’s taken years to be able to understand it and to get to a place to do something positive to help those who, like my dad, may be struggling.

Timing is everything. This isn’t something I could have handled emotionally a few years ago but having experienced severe depression between 2021 & 2023, my recovery highlighted a need in me to do something truly purposeful.” 

Having been behind PR campaigns such as Champion Health’s workplace wellbeing and suicide prevention reports, supporting charities such as the National Centre for Suicide Prevention, Education and Training, and local homelessness charity Simon on the Streets, Ellie realised how much it meant to be part of something meaningful.

Ellie’s desire led her to become a local suicide prevention campaigner for Samaritans and Trustee of national suicide prevention charity, Baton of Hope.

With The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reporting that 2023 suicide rates are statistically significantly higher than the previous three years, with suicide listed as the main cause of death in people under 35 years old in the UK, Ellie was keen to do even more.

Having spent time observing the sector, retraining, researching and planning, Ellie appointed Leeds-based branding agency, ALLGOOD to create a positive, vibrant brand which aims to make it easier to have conversations around suicide and poor mental health.

Ellie continues: “The statistics are shocking and it’s about time we finally break the stigma to put an end to people’s silent suffering. 

I plan to use my PR background to run awareness-raising and stigma-reducing campaigns, talks, events and activities in workplaces, businesses, and schools, and of course by getting as many people as possible trained.

HelloHope will deliver simple yet vital lifesaving training to adults as preventative methods so we can all better at understanding the signs to look for and how to get someone who is struggling to a place of safety (whilst keeping the intervener safe).”

Over the past nine years, Ellie has won awards for her PR agency which set out to do business better. This includes Yorkshire’s Young Leader of the Year in the Business Desk Yorkshire’s Leadership Awards and Start-Up Businesswoman of the Year in Forward Ladies regional awards.

HelloHope will launch at a special event alongside celebrating MacComms’ ninth birthday on Thursday the 23rd of May at Nexus, Leeds from 5.30pm.