The Process

The Stroke Association’s legacy pledgers are integral to helping the charity support stroke survivors long into the future. For the charity, that means making sure they know they’re highly valued, and the Circle is a key touchpoint in their year to remind and reassure them that they’ve made a good decision with their pledge.

It needs first and foremost to strike just the right tone, sensitive to each reader’s own experiences of stroke. It needs to include real people’s stories of recovery and building a new life after stroke, as well as updates in research into prevention, better outcomes and support. And it needs to be of high quality without looking – or being – expensive to produce.

The Result

Responses from the readers are overwhelmingly positive and the quality of their feedback is high. Starting with a flat-plan informed by choosing from the topline summaries of content available, we’ve been able consistently to produce a much-loved magazine which goes down well with the wonderful community of Stroke Association legacy pledgers.

Personal stories have enabled individual’s characters to shine through, thanks to our photo briefs, artistic design, in-depth interviews and copywriting. Complicated research has been distilled to make it accessible to the lay reader, with a strong focus on how it aims to affect real people’s outcomes and futures. We’ve even been able to stretch the brand to allow The Circle to become something of a positive, inspiring focal point for the comms and engagement teams beyond our dedicated legacy colleagues.

What we’re most proud of

The team put a lot of trust in us to “strike the perfect tone” as instructed in the brief, and we’re proud to have consistently repaid that trust. When legacy pledging is such a personal action to take, and so much trust is involved between donor and charity, we’re immensely proud to be a part of this deep and meaningful relationship.