Redefining a national charity
Threshold helps people protect their tenancy, understand their rights and stay in their homes. But its role wasn’t always understood.
Many people associated it with services for people already experiencing homelessness. Others assumed it was fully state funded. We partnered with Threshold to close that gap—clarifying its purpose, strengthening its voice as an independent charity and giving its team the tools to build understanding and support.
What we did
- Stakeholder interviews and workshops
- Collaborative brand discovery and sector review
- Brand positioning and strapline
- Audience personas and messaging framework
- Visual identity and brand applications
- Brand guidelines and staff training
Understanding the misunderstanding
For Threshold, public perception had practical consequences. Confusion about its services obscured the support it offered renters. Assumptions about state funding weakened the case for donations.
We began by listening to staff, service users, partners and senior leaders. Through interviews and workshops, we explored what people understood about Threshold, what they expected from it and where its communications needed to work harder.
A co-design session with senior stakeholders helped turn those insights into a shared direction. We reviewed the existing brand alongside organisations in Ireland and internationally, identifying opportunities for Threshold to make its role clearer and its presence more distinctive.
Putting renters at the centre
The research gave us a clear priority: put Threshold’s support for renters at the heart of the brand.
We developed a focused proposition and a direct strapline: Supporting Ireland’s Renters. Together, they made the charity’s preventative role easier to explain, connecting its day-to-day tenancy support with its wider purpose of preventing homelessness.
This gave Threshold a straightforward starting point for its communications: who it supports, how it helps and why its work matters.
Giving people a reason to engage
Different audiences needed different things from Threshold’s communications. Renters needed to understand the help available. Donors needed to understand why their support was necessary.
We created audience personas and a messaging framework to address those needs. This helped the team tailor individual messages while keeping a consistent account of Threshold’s purpose across its communications.
Making its independent charitable status explicit was essential. By bringing that message together with the human value of its work, we gave Threshold a stronger foundation for explaining why public support matters.
Making expertise feel approachable
Threshold’s brand needed to reflect both its authority on renters’ rights and the humanity of the people delivering its services.
We developed an identity that balanced confidence with warmth, supported by practical examples across social media, print, advocacy and fundraising. The emphasis was on helping Threshold communicate with people: explaining support clearly, bringing personal stories forward and making calls to action visible.
The visual system gave these messages a recognisable presence, with enough flexibility to move between reassuring someone seeking help and encouraging someone to donate.
Giving the team ownership
We built the guidelines around two complementary parts: the “words” and the “pictures”. This brought the strategy, messaging and identity together in a resource for staff and freelance collaborators.
Examples showed how to apply the brand across everyday communications, with particular attention to keeping fundraising human and approachable. An in-person training session helped staff understand the thinking behind the brand and put it into practice.
Threshold came away with a clearer way to explain its role and the tools to carry that message consistently—from the first point of contact with a renter to the next appeal for support.
