e act as trusted learning and evaluation partners for organisations seeking credible evidence that drives real improvement. Our approach combines rigorous quantitative analysis with qualitative insight, ensuring that evidence is both reliable and meaningful. We design evaluation frameworks, run stakeholder interviews, facilitate focus groups, and use surveys to capture both breadth and depth.

As the UK-wide learning partner for BBC Children in Need, we are delivering over sixty Action Learning sessions with grassroots youth organisations in rural, island, and coastal communities. These sessions create space for reflective practice and continuous professional development, while our mixed-method evaluation is influencing strategy and policy. We are also delivering 24 Action Learning sessions with the University of Strathclyde and two councils on housing and employability, ensuring that learning is shared across systems and informs practical reform.

With NHS Grampian, we combined social research, stakeholder interviews, and training for GPs and health staff to influence commissioning around social prescribing. Our evaluation work always moves beyond reporting: it creates action learning environments that embed improvement in real time.

If you need an evaluation or learning partner who will combine rigorous analysis with practical action learning to improve services, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We design inclusive community engagement and visioning processes that give voice to residents and stakeholders while generating robust evidence. Our methods are tailored to context: from community-wide surveys to focus groups, from stakeholder interviews to participatory workshops.

In Bingham, Edinburgh, commissioned by City of Edinburgh Council, we engaged over one hundred residents through community events, a door-to-door survey, and targeted conversations. The blend of quantitative data and qualitative insight was analysed independently and produced an actionable report that reflected the community’s voice.

Our track record also includes Our Place Ardrossan and Our Place Bellsmyre, where hundreds of residents shaped long-term visions through streetwork, door-knocking, drop-in sessions, and structured workshops. These processes unlocked millions in community-led investment and created local development trusts to sustain the vision.

We often use the Three Horizons framework to support visioning, helping communities and organisations consider immediate needs, emerging innovations, and long-term transformation together.

If you require community engagement or visioning that stands up to scrutiny and supports meaningful change, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We use the Three Horizons model to help organisational partnerships navigate complex change. This facilitation method creates structured dialogue about current systems, emerging innovations, and long-term transformation. It is particularly useful for partnership strategies, public sector reform, and feasibility scoping.

Our role with the Allerdale Community Partnership was to work with them towards a plan for a long-term vision. We combined interviews, workshops, and engagement processes that informed the design of a citizen assembly and investment approach.

Three Horizons has been embedded into our organisation since its founding, as Andrew Lyon of International Future Forum, was a co-founder of Community Renewal Trust as a charity. This history ensured that our approach to strategy and facilitation was build on Three Horizons since founding.

If your partnership needs a structured Three Horizons process that converts vision into an implementable roadmap, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

meaningful. Our nationally important Lifting Neighbourhoods Together programme was a large test of change, showing how holistic community-led approaches can reduce poverty and reshape services. This work combined household surveys, peer research, focus groups, and community engagement, producing evidence that influenced national discussions about system reform.

Our three-year programme with NHS Grampian combined training for health staff, patient interviews, and system-wide workshops to influence commissioning on social prescribing.

Many of our systems change projects are underpinned by Action Learning – creating spaces where professionals and communities reflect, test, and adapt in cycles of continuous improvement.

If you want systems thinking that is practical, measurable, and embedded across stakeholders, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We amplify the voices of people with lived experience through ethical research and peer-led enquiry. A sample of examples is included here.

In Govanhill, Glasgow, we work as Community Renewal Rom Romeha  on the Heriot Watt University partneship called Roma Age Place in which we have develped a cohort of migrant Roma peer researchers (or co-researchers) to lead engagement in their own community. This is an extension of a wider “by Roma for Roma” approach and has become a best practice example of authentic participation, using surveys, focus groups, and community events in multiple languages.

As the learning partner for BBC Children in Need, we are supporting grassroots organisations to undertake their own peer research, combining lived experience with quantitative analysis.

In Bingham we designed a process that combined street conversations, structured workshops, and a community survey to ensure voices were both heard and statistically represented.

For the Dementia Technology project CONSOLIDATE we sit on the Strategic Partnership to represent best practice in community engagement and amplifying lived experience voices.

We ensure that lived experience is treated as expertise, while Action Learning helps practitioners and residents reflect together on how to use that expertise to change systems.

If you want research that treats lived experience as evidence and produces credible results, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We have supported the development of community partnerships and networks with hundreds of organisations across Scotland and beyond. Our work is rooted in facilitation, evidence gathering, and trust-building. In Ardrossan and Bellsmyre, our engagement processes resulted in new community development trusts which continue to lead change.

We are a key partner in the R2 Network in North Edinburgh, hosting the network coordinator and supporting collaboration between local groups, funders, and public services. This is recognised as best practice in local network development. Our Chief Executive, John Halliday, also contributes nationally as a board member of multiple third sector network development charities, strengthening the link between local practice and national policy.

Partnership development is always grounded in mixed-method evidence: surveys to capture broad trends, interviews and focus groups to surface depth, and facilitation techniques like Three Horizons and Action Learning to align partners around shared goals.

A further example is in Edinburgh where we created and host a hyper-local community wealth building alliance with 11 members serving an area with just 4000 residents. Separately we host a coordinator post for the R2 network in North Edinburgh (albeit that this work was led by alternate organisations).

In total we have over 91 organisations formally engaging with our local networks and hubs including through collocation agreement, memorandum of understanding or other partnership models.

If you are seeking to build sustainable partnerships or multi-agency networks, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We design and deliver transparent engagement and decision-making processes that help communities steward significant funds. Our particular expertise is combining fund management with systematic community engagement, community development led co-production and community visioning.

In Ardrossan, a co-produced community vision informed over £1.5m of National Lottery investment, with decisions shaped through workshops, interviews, and ongoing participation. In Bellsmyre, more than £2.5m was invested through a new community development trust that emerged from our facilitation. In these cases we led on vision development, systematic community engagement, building community capacity to apply for funds and the fund management itself where funds sat in our special fund management independent bank account,

We bring credibility and independence, ensuring that decisions about community funds are supported by both quantitative evidence (such as survey data) and qualitative insight (such as focus groups and lived experience testimony). This combination builds trust and accountability between communities, funders, and commissioners.

If you want evidence-based engagement and governance to support fair and strategic community investment, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We provide expert facilitation for meetings, workshops, focus groups, and Action Learning sets. Facilitation is one of our core skills, ensuring that diverse stakeholders can work together productively.

As learning partner for BBC Children in Need, we are delivering over sixty Action Learning sessions across the UK. These support grassroots organisations to reflect on practice, improve outcomes, and generate shared learning for policy and strategy. We are also currently leading 24 Action Learning sessions with the University of Strathclyde and two councils on housing and employability – another example of how Action Learning strengthens both policy and practice.

Facilitation has been embedded in our organisation since its founding, as Andrew Lyon from IFF – a co-founder of Community Renewal Trust – ensured that Three Horizons and high-impact facilitation were core principles from the beginning. Our facilitation is evidence-based and participatory. In Bingham, for example, we facilitated community events, workshops, and a survey, producing a neutral and professional report for the City of Edinburgh Council.

If you need independent facilitation or Action Learning that builds capability and gets results, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We train frontline staff in holistic, person-centred engagement methods that improve outcomes for individuals and communities. Our training has supported health services, local authorities, and voluntary organisations to embed these approaches in practice. Sessions can be delivered in person or online, and we also provide structured online courses that can be adapted or created bespoke for your organisation.

To explore holistic conversation training for your team, contact john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

Drawing on years of experience with our Lifting Neighbourhoods Together programme, we equip staff and volunteers to carry out effective listening conversations at the doorstep and in community spaces. These skills help organisations better understand local priorities, build trust, and avoid consultation fatigue. Training can take the form of in-person workshops, interactive online delivery, or tailored online courses that provide lasting access to materials and methods.

If your organisation would benefit from listening conversation training, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We provide tailored training in community engagement methodologies. For example, we delivered training for City of Edinburgh Council staff, enhancing their confidence and capacity to engage with diverse communities. Our approach combines practical techniques such as participatory workshops, surveys, and streetwork with a strong emphasis on inclusivity and respect. Training is available in person or online, and we also offer flexible online courses that can either be taken off the shelf or customised to your context.

If you would like community engagement training designed for your organisation, contact john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We train organisations to provide outstanding customer care rooted in empathy, listening, and cultural awareness. Our expertise comes from years of direct service delivery in disadvantaged communities, where trust and relationship-building are vital. Training can be delivered face-to-face, remotely via interactive online sessions, or through online courses designed either off-the-shelf or bespoke to your team’s requirements.

To arrange customer care training tailored to your staff, email john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.

We provide specialist training in anti-racism and Roma culture, designed to foster understanding, challenge stereotypes, and build inclusive practice. Delivered by experienced facilitators, our sessions are rooted in the work of Community Renewal Rom Romeha, our Roma-led team active in Govanhill for over a decade.

Our trainers include multilingual Roma community workers—delivering content in Slovak, Romanian, Czech, Romanes and English—who bring deep lived experience to the conversation. Their approach blends historical context, cultural insight (such as Roma values around family, language, faith and tradition), and participatory learning methods to promote empathy, respect and meaningful behaviour change.

We have delivered these sessions for a wide range of organisations including Glasgow businesses, the Department for Work and Pensions, and other public agencies, ensuring that staff are equipped with practical understanding and the confidence to apply anti-racist approaches in their daily work.

We offer flexible delivery options:

• In-person workshops exploring Roma heritage, discrimination, language diversity, and anti-racist approaches in public services and workplaces.

• Live online sessions that encourage reflective practice and peer learning across teams.

• Online modules that can be made available off-the-shelf or tailored to your organisation’s needs.

If you’re looking to build inclusive awareness and anti-racist practice within your team, please contact john.halliday@communityrenewal.org.uk.