Holly Cato is one of Pilotlight London’s most experienced Pilotlighters having worked with our charities since autumn 2003, and has supported charities working in fields as diverse as domestic violence, palliative care and women in secure hospitals. Holly is a branding consultant who specialises in naming brands and companies, and brings a very particular set of skills with relevance to several of our charities as they plan for ambitious growth programmes.
Holly’s most recent work with Pilotlight was renaming the charity Counselling in Prison. Counselling in Prison, now called Forensic Therapies Ltd, provides counselling and psychotherapy to prisoners in HMP Holloway, HMP Pentonville, HMP Wandsworth and HMP Brixton. It aims to expand the service to other prisons and is also piloting a service to cover the first twelve months after release. The charity’s work addresses emotional, psychological and criminogenic issues related to offending behaviour.
Director Steve Morris says he and the honorary counsellors are “clinicians, not managers”, and when Forensic Therapies Ltd approached Pilotlight, it needed assistance with governance, funding, recruitment, contract bidding, risk assessment and impact measurement. The charity asked Pilotlight for help to write a business plan to structure thinking about its direction.
Subsequently, Holly joined the team to develop a new name for the charity. The name ‘Counselling in Prison’ was suspected to be a barrier to funding as the term ‘counselling’ was too broad to reflect the professionalism and rigour of the organisation’s approach, and the term ‘prisons’ alienating to potential supporters. In addition, the charity’s work was extending beyond prison walls, so the name was no longer entirely accurate.
Holly: “Many charities simply outgrow their names. It’s often a sign of a charity’s success and growth – they expand beyond their original offer and/or their geographic region, the two pieces of information that often make up a charity’s name. Steve understood immediately that names are powerful communication tools, and that his charity’s name, Counselling in Prison, was holding his organisation back from fulfilling its potential and achieving the growth he’d mapped out in the work done with Pilotlight. Renaming can often feel uncomfortable because it means letting go of a familiar identity, but it can be exactly what’s needed, and help open the door to growth and sustained success. That’s certainly our intention for Forensic Therapies Ltd.”
Understanding the name’s limitations was the first step in developing the Naming Strategy. After that, the team explored the organisation’s communication needs and context, along with the organisation’s key audiences, its services and desired image. The name solution, Forensic Therapies Ltd, was accurate and meaningful to the key audiences, and carried a tone of professionalism and modernity. And very importantly, Steve and his honorary counsellors felt very comfortable with it.
Steve believes the new name is also more attractive to prisons, courts, funders and other stakeholders, and has helped bring the freelance counsellors closer to the organisation. He describes Holly as having extraordinary energy, which was important because his work is so emotionally draining, and the naming process as thoroughly enjoyable.