New community interest company poised to help prevent suicide

The founder of nine-year-old PR agency, MacComms, is about to establish her second business.

Ellie MacDonald, from Leeds, has trained as a mental health and suicide prevention instructor trainer and is launching her community interest company, HelloHope, later this month.

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

She said: “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.”

MacDonald is a suicide prevention campaigner for Samaritans and a trustee of national suicide prevention charity, Baton of Hope.

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

She added: “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 be better at understanding the signs to look for and know how to get someone who is struggling to a place of safety, whilst keeping the intervener safe.”

MacDonald has won awards for her PR work, including Yorkshire’s Young Leader of the Year in TheBusinessDesk.com’s Yorkshire’s Leadership Awards and Start-Up Businesswoman of the Year in Forward Ladies regional awards.

HelloHope will be launched on Thursday 23 May at Nexus, Leeds, from 5.30pm.