The archive · Brand & Identity · Marketing decision · 2023
The Disabilities Trust rebrands as Brainkind to lead UK brain-injury care
After 40 years supporting all disabilities, The Disabilities Trust renamed itself Brainkind, engaging its 1,600 employees in a name meant to inspire pride.
Brainkind
What it had to solve
The Disabilities Trust had spent 40 years supporting a wide range of disabilities when it set a new vision: to become the UK's leading charity for people affected by brain injury. The sharper focus demanded a name that could carry the ambition and make everyone it touched feel part of it.
How it works
The Disabilities Trust spent 40 years supporting a wide range of disabilities. Then its leadership set a sharper ambition: to become the UK's leading charity for people affected by brain injury — and concluded the old name could not carry that shift.
The answer was to make the new name do the repositioning. The charity rebranded as Brainkind, folding its specialty and its character into one word, as part of an overhaul of the whole identity.
Rather than impose the name from above, the trust channelled the collective mind of its 1,600 employees to shape it, aiming for a name that instils pride in everyone it touches.
Brainkind launched in 2023 as the former Disabilities Trust's new public identity, and the work is held in the D&AD awards archive as a case of naming a repositioning.
Why it lands
- The name carried the strategy: 'Brainkind' tells you both what the charity now does and how it treats people, in one word.
- Involving 1,600 employees made the new identity something people helped create, turning a top-down rebrand into a source of collective pride.
- After 40 years under a broad name, the sharper name forced both the organization and its audience to see the new focus.
- A full brand refresh around one word gave the relaunch a coherent face instead of a new logo bolted onto old messaging.
What it did
The relaunch gave a 40-year-old charity an identity that names its specialty and its character in one word, built with the people who would carry it. The work is held in the D&AD awards archive as an example of naming an organizational repositioning.
What you can take
When an organization's mission narrows, rename for the future, not the past: a name built with the people inside it makes a strategic shift something employees and service users feel proud to carry.
Since then
The relaunch as Brainkind marked The Disabilities Trust's public turn toward brain injury and neurological conditions, giving it a name built to lead that field in the UK. The rebrand work entered the D&AD awards archive as a reference for charity renamings. The lasting lesson preserved there is that a name shaped with the people inside the organization can make a difficult strategic narrowing feel like pride rather than loss.
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