CASE STORY • BRAND STRATEGY + EXPERIENCE

Pine Haven Christian Home

Overcoming Barriers to Consideration

When I joined Pine Haven Christian Home in 2014, the organization was preparing for the largest expansion in its 60+ year history. Nearly 40 new residences were coming—but much of the community still thought of Pine Haven as “the old nursing home.”

The problem wasn't the experience Pine Haven offered. It was getting people to consider it in the first place. Once they walked through the doors, the reality challenged their assumptions: this was a warm, vibrant Christian community where people continued to live, grow, recover, worship and belong.

As Director of Marketing & Community Outreach, I focused on overcoming that barrier—strengthening the brand, clarifying the continuum of care, creating reasons for people to visit, and making sure the message was everywhere.

THE CHALLENGE

Overcoming the assumptions surrounding senior care that kept people from considering Pine Haven.

WHAT I BROUGHT

Brand strategy, audience insight, messaging design, and community outreach that was focused on getting people to stop in so they could feel our difference.

THE EVOLUTION

From "the old nursing home" toward a vibrant Christian continuum-of-care community people could see themselves choosing.

THE WORK

• Brand strategy • Messaging • Website • Collateral • Media Buying • Event Planning & Coordination • Signage • Community Outreach • Copywriting • Video •

01 • THE BARRIER TO CONSIDERATION

The reality was different from the perception.

Before I learned about occupancy goals, fundraising campaigns, or expansion plans, I walked through the front doors for my interview. What I experienced told me almost everything I needed to know.

People were smiling: residents, staff, visitors—everyone. The building didn't smell like a hospital. It smelled like home. A resident I had never met greeted me warmly, kissed me on the cheek, and welcomed me as though I were already a part of the family.

Then the interview began—with prayer. A genuine request that God guide the decisions being made on behalf of the people Pine Haven served.

I'd visited senior care facilities before. None had felt like this.

I remember thinking: If people could experience this place for themselves, the marketing would almost write itself.

We just had to get them through the front door.

02 • FINDING THE STORY THAT ALREADY EXISTED

Everyone told me the same story.

In all my years of brand work, I've never encountered a situation where everyone agreed on the one thing that made an organization different from its competitors. Until Pine Haven.

Leadership. Staff across different departments and campuses. Residents and their families. They all said the same thing: Everyone was committed to truly serving Christ through serving His people.

Genuine faith translated into real dedication and care. It was in the heart and soul of Pine Haven and the people who worked there.

The challenge was expressing that genuine dedication without turning it into phony, self-aggrandizing marketing.

At the same time, we needed to make it clear what Pine Haven was. The name Pine Haven Christian Communities didn't tell someone new to the area that we provided senior care. We needed a tagline that could solve for both:

Servant Hearts. Caring Hands. Inspired Living as You Age.

Every part carried meaning:

Servant Hearts. True Christian dedication.
Caring Hands. People who do the work.
Inspired Living. A life inspired by God—and the idea of living a great life.
As You Age. The piece that makes it clear we're senior care.

Pine Haven was a place where people continued to LIVE—making friends, worshipping, recovering, learning, laughing and remaining part of a community.

(In later years, the tagline evolved to Christ-led care for inspired senior living.)

03 • SELLING THE CONTINUUM, NOT THE CAMPUS

One move. One community. Care for life.

Pine Haven's existing brochures focused on individual campuses and services. In effect, the campuses were competing with one another—while families were left trying to understand unfamiliar levels of care at one of the most stressful moments of their lives.

The bigger story was getting lost.

Pine Haven offered a full continuum of care. Someone could enter supported independent living, then move into assisted living, memory care, rehabilitation or skilled nursing as their needs changed—all within the same Pine Haven family. It was Pine Haven Christian Communities.

That continuity offered something much more valuable than a particular building or apartment: peace of mind.

Families didn't have to wonder what would happen if Mom or Dad needed more care later. And if a resident eventually exhausted their financial resources, Pine Haven helped transition them to government-funded care. They remained part of the community and continued receiving the same care.

That needed to be understood.

So instead of marketing each location as a separate choice, I reframed the story around Pine Haven as one community with a continuum of care. I created an overarching brochure explaining how everything fit together, supported by individual pieces that explained each level of care.

The goal wasn't simply to explain what Pine Haven offered. It was to help families understand what they were really choosing: A place where someone could come to live—and know they would continue to be cared for, whatever came next.

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04 • GETTING PEOPLE THROUGH THE DOOR

Seeing is believing.

Understanding the continuum of care gave families peace of mind.

But it didn't eliminate the biggest barrier to consideration: the picture people already had in their minds of what senior care looked like. Institutional hallways. Hospital smells. People sitting around with nothing to do. Loss of independence. And for an adult child, the guilt that came with the words “putting Mom or Dad in a home.”

For them to understand that Pine Haven was truly different, they had to experience it for themselves.

So I looked for reasons to bring people through the doors before they needed senior care. Events.

Some were educational. Some were social. Some were simply fun: presentations, board game nights, educational seminars, even an evening exploring the incredible variety of Wisconsin apples.

Residents attended alongside members of the public. People saw the spaces, met the staff, talked with residents and experienced everyday life at Pine Haven without the pressure of making a care decision.

Again and again, I heard the same reaction: “I never knew this was here.”

That was the point.

Once people experienced the real Pine Haven, the picture they'd carried in their heads became the picture of everywhere else. The very assumptions that had been a barrier to considering senior care became a reason to choose Pine Haven.

05 • EXPANDING THE CIRCLE

Strengthening connections to the faith community.

Pine Haven was founded in 1950 by a coalition of local Reformed Presbyterian churches, and those founding churches remained central to its identity.

But the community around Pine Haven had grown.

Other churches shared Pine Haven's values and were already recommending it to their members, despite having no formal relationship with the organization.

I saw an opportunity to strengthen those connections and proposed an Affiliate Church Program.

The idea was intentionally simple: affiliate churches received information about Pine Haven's events, educational programs, volunteer opportunities and community initiatives and could share anything they believed would be useful to their congregations.

Church after church joined.

The program expanded Pine Haven's relationships beyond its founding congregations and gave us another way to extend its mission of serving the community in Jesus' name.

06 • LOOKING BACK

The message was everywhere.

During the move into the newly completed Haven Drive campus, one resident was being wheeled into his new room by family members. He looked around in amazement.

“What is this place?”

His family smiled. “This is your new home.”

He looked around again. “I live here?!”

To him, it looked more like a luxury resort than a nursing home.

Those three words captured the perception change we had been working toward: I live here?!

Some time later, I was attending a community event unrelated to Pine Haven when someone asked what I did for a living. When I told them I handled Pine Haven's marketing, they immediately smiled. “Oh yeah... Pine Haven's marketing is everywhere.”

They were noticing the cumulative effect of community partnerships, church relationships, events, public outreach, advertising and storytelling. Each effort reinforced the others until Pine Haven had become part of the community conversation.

When I arrived, much of the community still knew Pine Haven as “the old nursing home.” Over the years I spent there, more people walked through those front doors and discovered a vibrant Christian community where people could continue to live, grow, recover, worship and belong.

Pine Haven had been living that story for decades. I helped more people see it.