How We Helped RAF Benevolent Fund Show the World the Brilliant Brand That They Are

RAF Benevolent Fund is the RAF's oldest and leading welfare charity.

They support all serving and former members of the RAF as well as their partners and dependent children. Here’s how we helped them to define who they are, what they stand for and their USP so they can show the world the brilliant work that they do.

Problem

RAF Benevolent Fund wanted to significantly increase their visibility and impact. It was time to revisit their brand, creating a strong positioning that:

positions them as a market leader – in line with their ambitious new strategy
sets out how they help – in a way that is different, not only from other RAF charities, but in the broader universe of charities
will allow them to become the military charity of choice and attract a broader mix of supporters (whilst staying true to their ethos and heritage)
articulates their mission and focus so that they can increase their impact and create a strong case for support

Solution

1. Audit

We wanted to ensure that we fully understood RAF Benevolent Fund’s needs, across ALL of their audiences. So we held an initial objectives session and brand audit with their leadership team and trustees to make sure everyone was fully engaged. We then conducted stakeholder interviews with staff, trustees, partners and the people they help to assess current perceptions of who they are and what they do.

2. Explore

Using the findings of RAF Benevolent Fund’s stakeholder interviews we reviewed and developed their purpose, personality, vision and values together, looking at what they had already and creating the elements that didn’t yet exist. This was done in a collaborative and interactive full day workshop with teams from across the organisation from welfare to fundraising and comms and finance. Following this all staff workshop, the new draft brand framework, with a clear and exciting new personality for the organisation was shared across the organisation for buy-in and was quickly adopted by teams!

As John, Director of Fundraising and Marketing at RAF Benevolent Fund said:

“We had the answers, but we needed the framework, coaching and workshopping approach you bring and lead so well to get the answers out on the table, ordered and implemented”

3. Action

Following the brand workshops, teams were already starting to use the brand framework in their day to day language and activity – especially the brand framework.
We helped them speed up the process of implementation by running dedicated brand action planning sessions with teams across the organisation -from Finance, IT and HR, to Welfare, to Fundraising and Communications. Each team was left with a specific action plan to help them embed and bring to life their new purpose and personality in day to day work. We also helped the core Brand team develop a new set of guidelines and ran a practical briefing session with their creative partners and agencies, to make sure they understood the new brand too!

4. Evaluate

Finally with clear brand action plans in place for the organisation, it was time to look at how RAF Benevolent Fund could measure and track the impact of the brand over time. We worked with the Fundraising and Communication teams to develop a measurement and evaluation plan looking at practical, easy to gather metrics that would help the organisation understand the impact of putting the brand framework in place– whether this was about, greater engagement with the RAF Family, increased awareness and understanding of what they do or more donations.

Results

The entire organisation is now ready to move forward together with a clear sense of purpose and focussed personality that they can bring to life on a day to day basis.

As John Trampleasure, Director of Fundraising and Communications put it:

“We have a clear and strong brand that we have confidence in – from Trustees through the senior management team, managers and staff as well as the people we help who all contributed to the review”

The brand work also directly shaped their first ever major awareness campaign, celebrating the centenary of the organisation and reaching out to the RAF family (past and present) in a way that had not been possible before the brand refresh.