St Margaret’s has two inpatient facilities in Taunton and Yeovil, leading a service of 16 specialist palliative care nurses, who operate via GP practices and hospitals throughout Somerset and North Dorset.
It was felt that in general, hospices are perceived as extremely worthwhile but also typically only associated with the end of life and terminal illness. St Margaret’s wished to challenge this perception and illustrate that hospice palliative care is about so much more.
St Margaret’s needed to establish exactly how they were currently perceived by stakeholders, supporters and the general public, before they could formulate a strategy for addressing and improving communication to achieve their aspiration of becoming the number one charity in Somerset and beyond.
Objective
To develop a communication strategy that supported the following areas:
- How awareness raising activity should be targeted
- How St Margaret’s purpose, aims and objectives should be communicated
- Donor development
- Raising the profile of St Margaret’s
- Brand development
Approach
In order to answer the objectives for the client, Turquoise recommended a combined methodology to explore the various groups. The survey utilised the following techniques: a qualitative & quantitative evaluation consisting of self-completion questionnaires, on-street surveys, depth interviews and focus groups.
Insight
The results illustrated the importance and value of St Margaret’s Hospice within the Somerset and North Dorset communities was without question. It showed the Hospice where and how they needed to communicate with potential donors and supporters which they were then able to successful implement into their strategy.