Weymouth veteran criticises Royal British Legion's £100,000 rebrand
Andy Price is asking whether the charity's money could have been better spent
The founder of Weymouth Veterans Hub is criticising the Royal British Legion’s £100k rebrand bill.
Andy Price is questioning whether the money could have been put to better use to help veterans who face a daily struggle.
It’s the first time the charity has rebranded in three decades. The Royal British Legion has defended the costs, saying it represents the two-year process of rebranding.
Andy Price of the Weymouth Veterans Hub says he can’t see that:
“Whatever angle I come at this from, and I have tried to justify it in my head, I’ve tried to look at if from their point of view.
“I just can’t justify that kind of spend from a charity that, grassroots, why that was set up 100 years ago, was because they wanted to make sure that men and women didn’t struggle when they left the forces, came back from war.”
Andy says that amount of money could have funded 200 veterans to get 1-on-1 trauma based therapy.
He also claims the money could have housed between 50-100 veterans and their families for a year.
“That would have bankrolled my project for 15 years freeing up much needed funds to put back into the lads and ladies that we support.”
Andy wasn’t the only person to voice his concerns in response to a tweet by the charity on Tuesday.
Still others spoke in support of the rebrand too, saying the company had done a good job and calling on twitter users to understand the logo as just the tip of the iceberg in a long rebrand.
The Royal British Legion says it takes the use of its funds very seriously and says the cost reflects two-years of hard work including stakeholder engagement, research, design work and the development of the logo and brand assets.
Statement from The Royal British Legion
A spokesperson for The Royal British Legion said:
“Our current brand was designed more than 30 years ago and over time it has evolved into 36 different logos and sub-brands, and as it was designed before many of today’s digital channels existed unfortunately it is no longer fit for purpose in the modern world. Research shows that whilst the Legion is well known for Remembrance, understanding of our welfare work is dropping year on year and we are taking action to address this.
“We take the use of charitable funds extremely seriously and we have made this significant investment to ensure we can reach and support more members of the Armed Forces community in the future by making it simpler for them to find us and understand who we are and what we do. The Royal British Legion is constantly evolving and looking for ways to make sure we best support the Armed Forces community and as we mark our centenary in 2021 it is vital we lay the foundations for an organisation that is fit for the next 100 years.”