Charities · Social enterprises · VCSE
Research that reflects your communities
Third sector and VCSE organisations work with people that mainstream research often overlooks. We design and deliver community research, lived experience studies, and co-design that genuinely reaches those communities - and produces evidence that funders, commissioners, and trustees can rely on.
Why third sector organisations work with us
Many charities and VCSE organisations know their communities deeply from years of direct work. What they often need is a structured, credible way to surface and document that knowledge - for commissioners, funders, or internal decision-making.
We understand the realities of third sector research: constrained budgets, communities that have been over-researched and under-listened-to, and the need to produce evidence that is both academically credible and accessible to non-specialist audiences.
Our work fits proportionately to your capacity and budget. We are not a large agency applying a corporate methodology to a community context - we work in partnership with your team, your networks, and the communities you serve.
Research and design services for third sector organisations
From early-stage community insight to co-designed services and impact measurement - we cover the full research cycle.
Lived experience research
In-depth qualitative research with the people your organisation exists to serve. We travel to communities rather than asking them to come to us - running workshops, interviews, and narrative sessions in the settings where people feel comfortable and where trust already exists. Libraries, community centres, faith settings, supported housing, people's own homes. Research at the pace and in the format that works for your participants, not ours.
Community co-design
Structured co-design processes that involve community members in shaping services, programmes, and strategies. Beyond consultation - genuine shared ownership of what gets built. Facilitated workshops, iterative design sessions, and community advisory structures that sustain involvement over time.
Needs assessment and scoping research
Structured research to understand community needs before designing or commissioning services. Combines quantitative reach with qualitative depth to give commissioners and funders a credible picture of what is needed, by whom, and where current provision falls short.
Impact and outcomes research
Evidence of impact for funders, commissioners, and trustees. Qualitative outcome mapping, beneficiary interviews, and case study documentation that demonstrates change in ways that reporting templates alone can't. Built around your theory of change and designed to meet the standards of your key funders.
Digital service and tool testing
Usability research for digital services, platforms, and tools used by or designed for third sector beneficiaries. Particularly experienced with testing digital services intended for people with limited digital access, low digital confidence, or complex needs - the populations where standard usability assumptions break down fastest.
Research for funding bids
Structured research and evidence-gathering in support of grant applications, commissioning bids, and funding renewals. Community insight, needs data, and stakeholder evidence framed for the specific requirements of your funding body. Built to deadlines and designed to strengthen your case.
The realities we work within
Third sector research has specific constraints and specific standards. We know both.
Reaching people who are hard to reach
The communities most important to third sector organisations are often the hardest to involve in research - people with complex needs, people who have been failed by services before, people whose first language isn't English, people who have no reason to trust another organisation asking questions. We recruit through trusted intermediaries, community networks, and peer relationships rather than panels. It takes longer and costs more per participant, but the quality of insight is incomparable.
Ethical involvement with vulnerable populations
Research with people experiencing homelessness, mental health challenges, substance dependency, domestic abuse, or poverty requires a different ethical framework than standard UX or market research. We design safeguarding into recruitment and facilitation, use trauma-informed approaches where relevant, and ensure participation is genuinely voluntary and genuinely useful to the people involved - not extractive.
Working proportionately within third sector budgets
We are not going to propose a twelve-week research programme to an organisation with a four-figure research budget. We scope to what is actually achievable, focus on the questions that matter most, and design research that your organisation can act on without needing a specialist to interpret. Where possible, we build capacity within your team rather than creating dependency on external researchers.
Producing evidence that travels
Research for third sector organisations often needs to do multiple jobs: inform internal decisions, evidence impact for funders, support commissioning conversations, and communicate to trustees and volunteers. We write outputs that work across these audiences - not just dense research reports that sit unread. Plain English summaries, visual outputs, and presentation-ready findings as standard.
Types of organisations we work with
Across the third sector spectrum - from small community organisations to national charities and social enterprises.
Common questions
Can third sector organisations afford professional user research?
We work with third sector organisations at all scales, from small local charities to national VCSEs. We scope work proportionately to what you actually need. For some organisations we help cost research into grant applications; for others we work with existing internal data and evidence to keep costs down.
What research services do you offer charities and VCSE organisations?
We offer lived experience research, community co-design, participatory research, focus groups, user interviews, survey research, and impact evaluation. We also support PPIE for organisations involved in academic or health research, and produce evidence that funders and commissioners can trust.
Can your research satisfy funder reporting requirements?
Yes. We are familiar with the evidence requirements of funders including NIHR, UKRI, the National Lottery Community Fund, and local commissioning bodies. We produce documented methods, ethical consent records, and findings in formats that support grant reporting, tender responses, and impact measurement.
Do you work with community groups and grassroots organisations?
Yes. Some of our most important work is with smaller grassroots organisations, community interest companies, and neighbourhood-level groups. We adapt our approach to work in community settings rather than expecting communities to come to us: flexible scheduling, accessible language, appropriate venues, and researchers who understand the realities of community-based work.
Do you have experience with social impact and lived experience research?
Yes, and it is central to our approach in this sector. We conduct lived experience research that centres the voices of people who have experienced the issues your organisation works on, with appropriate care around trauma-informed practice, consent, power dynamics, and ethical representation.
What does this cost for a charity or VCSE organisation?
A focused piece of work starts from £3,500: enough for a round of interviews or a couple of community sessions, written up so it can go into a funding bid or a board paper. Larger involvement programmes start from £8,500. Recruitment and fair payment for participants are included. If your research budget is four figures, say so at the first conversation and we will tell you honestly whether we can do something useful inside it. Tell us what you are working on.
Related work
Barriers to employment for people with complex mental health needs
Lived experience research with adults with complex mental health needs, delivered in partnership with a third sector organisation. Research that reframed the question from individual readiness to systemic failure.
Read the case studyUnderstanding the lived experience of obesity
Qualitative workshops with diverse community participants exploring how stigma, workplace pressure, and social context shape engagement with health services.
Read the case studyFocus groups and workshops
Structured facilitation methods for surfacing community insight, co-designing services, and generating qualitative evidence that stands up to scrutiny.
Focus groups and workshopsIn-depth research
One-to-one interviews and diary studies for when you need depth, nuance, and the kind of insight that group settings don't surface.
In-depth researchWhere we work
We are based in West Yorkshire and deliver across the UK. Most of this work runs remotely; when a project calls for being in the room, we travel. See user research in Leeds and Yorkshire, or the full list of locations we cover.
We fully recognise the effort your team invested in recruitment, moderation, and analysis, and we genuinely appreciate the quality of the discussions and reporting.
- Usability problems in an insulin device surfaced before manufacturing locked anything in, with human factors evidence supporting the regulatory submission.
- An NHS patient portal team got a prioritised, evidenced list of adoption barriers, and the highest-leverage fix wasn't the one they expected.
- Patient involvement changed a trial's primary endpoint before the protocol was finalised, cited by the ethics committee as a model for evidencing PPIE.
Trusted PPI and PPIE delivery partner to the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care.
Working in the third sector and need research support?
Tell us about your organisation, the communities you work with, and what you are trying to understand or evidence. We will suggest a proportionate approach.
Start a conversationWe usually respond within one working day.
Prefer to talk it through first?
Book a free 20-minute call. No obligation, no sales pitch. We'll tell you honestly whether research is worth it for your decision, and what it would cost.