Bath brand agency The House has helped South Devon hospice Rowcroft develop a new strategy to unlock more support and donations by encouraging people to look at hospices in a new light.
Rowcroft cares for more than 2,200 people each year – yet many of South Devon’s 270,000-strong population were unaware of its work.
The House, which helps transform businesses with purpose, worked with Rowcroft’s executive team to clarify its purpose and build a strategy to increase the hospice’s visibility, better explain the value it provides its patients and families and attract more donors and volunteers.
Rowcroft’s refreshed vision and strategy challenges perceptions of hospices by presenting them as a life-affirming place of care and compassion, where the focus is to help patients and families make the most of their time left together.
The House business head Graham Massey said: “With more and more worthy causes demanding our attention, it’s vital that charitable organisations have a precise understanding of their purpose and are able to communicate a clear and inspiring message.”
At the project outset, The House staged a series of workshop sessions with more than 100 Rowcroft employees, including health and social care professionals, fundraisers, retail staff and volunteers as well as members of patients’ families.
From these sessions emerged common themes that will now drive the hospice’s future business and brand strategy. The House also helped develop a set of new internal values that will align all elements of the hospice with the new purpose and direction.
Rowcroft Hospice chief executive Giles Charnaud said: “The work we have undertaken has helped us to join the dots, connect the head with the heart and move our conversation from the transactional to the emotional. We hope that through our new communications we are able to show Rowcroft is far from dark and depressing; it is a place full of love and laughter.”
Rowcroft’s refreshed messaging is now being expressed throughout its communications, including a short film produced by Bath-based video community interest company Suited and Booted that captures the positive and life affirming moments that take place every day at the hospice.
Entitled Love Life Every Day – https://youtu.be/Gy9O6EvfsvI - the film has had widespread press coverage, has been viewed more than 75,000 times on social media and was projected on the big screen on Paignton beach during Rowcroft’s Colour Rush 5km charity run in September.
Giles Charnaud added: “We hope that by making and sharing this film, more people will come to understand what really happens at the hospice; how it is able to make possible moments that can be treasured forever.”
Rowcroft’s communications team has since gone on to bring the new proposition to life, sharing uplifting patient and family stories as a key part of their strategy.
Pictured: Participants on the Rowcroft Colour Rush. Photo courtesty of Mark Lakeman Photography
