The Hallmark Foundation champions innovation, research and collaboration to improve health and wellbeing, connection and care throughout people's lives. To further the foundation's work, partnerships and influence, the trustees wanted a clearer way of articulating what the foundation is, what makes it distinctive and how it contributes to improving later life.
What was our challenge?
The Hallmark Foundation has a strong sense of purpose, an impressive range of funded activities across innovation, research and practical projects, and deep expertise rooted in frontline care. But like many growing charities, it had reached a point where its communications needed to catch up with its ambition.
The arrival of new trustees with enthusiasm and energy provided the ideal opportunity to create a new brand playbook that would bring greater clarity to the foundation's role, strengthen its positioning within the ageing and social care sector and give trustees, staff and partners an uncomplicated, shared language to describe its impact.
Our challenge was to help define what makes the Hallmark Foundation unique, create a narrative and supporting messaging that bridged its practical experience of helping people live long, healthy, meaningful lives, and its ambition to influence how society thinks and behaves about ageing.
Our approach
As with any Agenda project, we started with discovery:
We reviewed the foundation's existing strategy, publications and communications, alongside the wider landscape in attitudes and innovations in ageing, health and social care.
We gathered insight from internal and external stakeholders through surveys and interactive workshops to understand how the foundation is currently perceived and where there were opportunities to define its unique place and strengthen its position.
We collaborated with the foundation’s board to explore its vision, mission, values and unique contribution.
Next, we developed the first playbook iteration - which we then tested with external and internal stakeholders to make sure it rang true – before updating then finalising a version in a further interactive session with trustees.
This process allowed us to move beyond simply describing what the foundation funds. Instead, we developed a brand that captured how it creates change: by championing bold, practical ideas; bringing together evidence and frontline experience; amplifying the voices of people across generations; and influencing the conversations that shape healthier ageing.
Alongside the strategic positioning, we developed practical guidance that trustees, staff and partners could use every day to help strengthen the foundation’s reputation, including brand personality, tone of voice, core messaging, proof-points and audience messaging templates.
What was the outcome?
The finished brand playbook gives the Hallmark Foundation a clear and confident voice for when communicating its purpose and impact.
Centred on a new tagline: bold action for better ageing, the playbook is built around a vision, mission, set of brand values and a compelling narrative that explains not only why the foundation exists, but how it makes a difference, and why anyone should care.
Like all Agenda projects, the work wasn't simply about an 'output' - we left behind a practical resource that can evolve over time. We're delighted to see how the foundation's website and impact report for 2026 have leaned heavily into the language and messaging the trustees created.
“The Agenda team were great to work with. They invested time and effort in understanding our comms challenges and what we wanted to achieve. Their in-depth research with key people internally and externally meant that their recommendations were aligned. They listened to our feedback at every stage and were thoughtful about how their findings were presented to decision-makers. This meant that everyone bought into the final proposals and there were no surprises when we implemented the results. Agenda’s whole approach is flexible and excellent value for money, as well as being underpinned by strong values and a touch of fun.”
