Collective Conversations: Sometimes The Problem Isn’t The Brand

One of the things we love about our Impact Hours is that people often arrive with one question and leave thinking about something slightly different. 

Our recent conversation with the Black Swimming Association was exactly that. 

Nat and I loved spending the hour with the BSA team. They were open about where they are as an organisation, what they are wrestling with and the questions they haven’t quite got answers to yet. Those are often the best conversations to be part of because nobody is pretending everything is neatly resolved. 

BSA came to us at an interesting point in its journey. The organisation was originally established with a clear focus on increasing swimming participation within Black communities, but its work has evolved significantly since then. Water safety and drowning prevention have become much more central, shaped by the evidence around disproportionate risk and everything the team has learned through its work. 

The question they brought into the Impact Hour was whether the Black Swimming Association name still fitted the organisation they had become. On the surface, it sounded like a branding question. As we talked, though, it became clear that there was something bigger underneath it. 

There is now a bit of a gap between the work BSA is doing today and what someone encountering the name for the first time might assume it does. “Swimming Association” naturally makes you think about participation, swimming lessons and getting more people into the water. The reality of BSA’s work is now much broader, spanning water safety, drowning prevention, education, insight and community engagement. 

That can leave the team having to explain who they are before they can even get into the conversation they actually want to have. 

What we found particularly interesting was that there wasn’t a strong body of external evidence saying the name itself was the problem. Funders hadn’t clearly told them that. Partners hadn’t necessarily said it. Nor had the communities they work with. 

What seemed to be happening was that the organisation had evolved, and the team was trying to work out whether the way BSA presents itself had evolved enough alongside it. 

That really made us think. 

When something becomes difficult to explain, it is very easy to look first at the thing people see: the name, the logo, the website, the brand. Sometimes changing those things is absolutely the right decision. But sometimes they are simply revealing a question that the organisation needs to answer first. 

So as the hour unfolded, the conversation moved away from simply asking, “Should BSA change its name?” 

A more interesting question emerged: “What does BSA want to be known for?”

That opened everything up. 

Before making a significant decision about the brand, there is an opportunity for BSA to understand how the organisation is actually experienced and understood by the people around it. What do partners believe its role is? What do communities value most about its work? Where does BSA sit alongside others working across aquatics and water safety? What can it bring that is genuinely distinctive? And what role does it want to play in that wider system in the years ahead? 

Those aren’t questions you answer in an hour, but it felt useful simply to surface them. It also meant there was no pressure to rush towards a rebrand. Instead, there was space to test some of the assumptions behind it. 

That could start relatively simply, by listening to participants, partners, funders and others across the sector and understanding what they think BSA stands for now, where the strongest parts of its story sit and where any genuine confusion exists. 

At the same time, there are things BSA can strengthen without waiting for a decision on the name. Its story can lead much more confidently with water safety and drowning prevention, be really clear about the inequality it exists to address and explain the role swimming plays within that bigger picture. 

The conversation also naturally moved into partnerships. BSA already has relationships across the aquatics system, and greater clarity around its role could help make those relationships even stronger. Rather than a broad invitation to support the organisation, there is an opportunity to be much clearer about what partners can actually engage with, whether that is training and education, research and insight, community engagement or family-focused programmes. 

What BSA also has right now is a valuable bit of breathing room. With core funding secured through to the end of 2027, this doesn’t need to be a rushed response to an immediate funding crisis. There is time to use this period well: to listen, get clearer about its position, strengthen the right partnerships and make some deliberate choices about what comes next. 

We came away from the Impact Hour feeling genuinely excited for them. There is already so much substance in the work and a team that clearly cares deeply about the issue it exists to address. This feels less like an organisation needing to reinvent itself and more like one reaching the point where it needs to articulate, with real confidence, what it has become. 

And perhaps that was the biggest reflection for us. 

Organisations can sometimes try to solve a clarity problem with a communications solution. A new name or new brand might ultimately be part of BSA’s next chapter, but the stronger starting point is understanding the story it needs that brand to tell. 

Who are we now? What problem are we really here to solve? What do we want people to understand about us without needing a ten-minute explanation? And where do we add something genuinely valuable that others don’t? 

We loved exploring those questions with the BSA team. 

We didn’t leave the room with all the answers, and that wasn’t really the point.

But the question had changed. And sometimes that is exactly where the useful work begins. 

Nicky Affleck & Nat Strange 

Affleck & Co.