West London Mission

West London Mission is now called Strides.

Strides is a housing association that caters for people displaced from society. This displacement can happen for a variety of reasons including re-introduction to society following prison terms, ex-military personnel, financial problems, mental health challenges and many other factors.

The benefits of being part of society are of course considerable, but finding your way back into it, or navigating a way through when you have been pushed to the fringes is hugely complex.

The challenge for West London Mission (as it was known at the time) was how to remove itself from its current overarching body and become its own entity.

It needed to find a way to effectively respond to an ever-increasing societal demand driven by the cost of living crisis and depleted government resources, as well as find a conducive way to ‘package’ its diverse range of services.

West London Mission was outgrowing its shoes.

It wanted to bring its Methodist roots and history with it, whilst no longer being governed by it.

And that meant the organisation needed a renewed value proposition…

This new proposition would remove barriers of ‘customer’ perception (ie. of housing associations and religious heritage), increase relevance to a highly challenging user base and deliver the platform for accelerated expansion, fundraising and third party investment.

It was recognised early on that a new organisational name was needed to create distance from the past whilst opening up opportunities for future growth.

The value proposition at the time simply didn’t resonate with service users. Its strategy centred on transforming lives – a notion that could not be further from the reality people were experiencing.

Through our insight gathered through interviews with users, providers, frontline colleagues and others, it was clear that the need was for helping people to find their way in society.

The new proposition built on the foundations of a housing association focused on maximising the social value of buildings for people and communities. With a renewed strategy a new organisational name was born, Strides, which reflects people’s ability to take strides forward in society.

Often Strides needs to talk about sensitive issues where using photography doesn’t feel right.

This is where our family of Striders can help, retaining an emotional and human connection with people, without relying on photography.

We caught up with Laura Deakin, Head of Fundraising at Strides, to ask her how she felt about appointing The Team to undertake this project.

Here’s what she told us…

The brief was complicated – moving from a church-based homelessness charity, reconstituting and rebranding a Housing Association that had long lay as a shell organisation.

We needed to modernise how we portray ourselves to the world, and rethink our entire mission and values. Additionally our areas of work are diverse, and so finding a way to bring cohesion to the portrayal also posed its own challenges.

Working with The Team was a great way to help us do both of these things.

We’ve now got a name and logo that reflect how we see the future of our work as a community housing association, and the work to strengthen the brand through imagery has helped bring the cohesion we need to be recognisable across everything we do.

The Team are intelligent thinkers, and the work went well beyond some nice colours and designs.

They supported us in thinking more strategically about how we see the brand. They’ve worked incredibly hard and effectively for us, providing everything we need to help us launch, as we Stride into the new organisation.

We are The Team of experts.

During our forty years of doing what we love, we’ve developed brands for The Beatles and the NHS and looked after employees at BP and Heathrow, to name just a few.

When you work with us, our consultants, strategists, writers, designers and project managers become a part of your team.

We create trust and deliver exceptional results, taking your brand to new levels of success.

We’d love to hear from you!

Get in Touch