Disability charity Sense plans to unveil a new brand early next year in a bid to shake off its old fashioned image.

In an interview with Fundraising Magazine Alana Tubasei, director of fundraising at Sense UK and Sense International, revealed that the charity is working with Saatchi & Saatchi on a refresh of its brand.

“Because we have such a wide portfolio of services, the key for us is to be able to distil what we do into one core message, an elevator pitch that we can communicate to the public. From recent research it became clear that our brand recognition is not great,” she said.

She said that they discovered people were not aware of the range of things the charity does and that “people tended to view us a slightly dated, traditional charity, when in fact we’re quite innovative and take quite a few risks, particularly with capital projects”.

Saatchi & Saatchi is carrying out the work pro bono after its creative director became involved with the charity’s work.

Tubasei said the new look “won’t be a radical change” and that the charity plans to reveal the new look and refreshed website in early 2016.

Plans to grow fundraising

Sense hopes to grow its income by one-third by 2018 and Tubasei said it will focus on increasing income from major donors and corporates.

Currently the charity generates £9m in those areas and plans to increase it to £12m by 2018.

“We are still in our infancy in those areas, but there is huge opportunity,” she said. The charity has appointed a fundraising board to help in those areas.

• Online subscribers can read the full interview here. Or click here to find out about subscription options.
• Alana Tubesei will be speaking about the rebrand at Civil Society Media’s Fundraising Live conference next year. Find out more and book your place here.