About The Researchery
Providing the evidence for a more informed, effective & impactful voluntary sector
Dr Cat Walker, Founder and Chief Consultant, The Researchery
Photo courtesy of GFW Clothing
The Researchery was founded in 2015 as a ‘small but mighty’ independent research consultancy helping to provide the evidence base for a more informed, effective and impactful voluntary sector. Working with selected partners for larger projects, The Researchery is equipped to take on any problem and help you to find the right solution. We believe in a better, more meaningful future.
Our approach is flexible and adaptable and we pride ourselves in constantly learning and pioneering. We can work together with you to help to demonstrate and increase the power of what you do. We’ll help you to ask the right questions and find the answers to achieve your goals.
Using our expertise leaves you free to do what you do best, in the knowledge that you will receive attention to detail from scoping to finished product. When you need a safe and reliable pair of hands for your research project, trust The Doctor!
“Now, what I want is Facts.”
Launching 'More to Give' at London's Guildhall
Photo courtesy of GFW Clothing
Founder of The Researchery
Dr Catherine Walker BA (Hons), PhD (EconPsy), FRSA
Speaking at the VSSN/NCVO research conference
Speaking to Foundations about Working in Place for ACF’s Impact & Learning Programme
About our Founder: Dr Cat Walker has worked in the UK voluntary sector for the last 25 years, from running small community organisations to working with two of the leading infrastructure bodies in the sector: Charities Aid Foundation where Cat was Head of Research from 1999-2006, and Directory of Social Change where Cat was Head of STEAM (Sector Trends Evidence Analysis & Metrics 2010-2015). In between these roles Cat has worked as a freelance consultant furthering the collective body of knowledge which the voluntary sector relies on to make effective decisions for future best practice. She is also an experienced and involved Trustee of a number of charitable organisations.
Cat is an outstanding and experienced freelance researcher with particular expertise in the funding environment for the UK voluntary sector. She is passionate about evidence-led social change for a better society.
Launching the Maritime Charities Group sector update research at Trinity House
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know that we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
Research background & training
Cat is an Economic Psychologist by training, with A PhD from Exeter University, including Research Methods and Statistical Analysis. Her passion is around why people do the things they do with money, including saving, spending and giving to charity.
A great believer in lifelong learning, Cat most recently completed courses in Impact Evaluation (Social Research Association), Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning (BOND), Impact Integration (Saskia Walcott Communications) and Agile working (SOMA & BIMA).
Cat has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Psychology and is a longstanding member of the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology. She writes a regular column for Charity Financials Insider.
Public speaking
From training course to TV and radio, panel debates and key speeches, we can represent your research to the world. Cat has appeared on Community TV with Dr Hilary Jones; on BBC’s The Big Questions; and on Forces TV. She has also been interviewed by Nicky Campbell on BBC Radio 5 Live.
Cat speaking on a panel on public service delivery by charities at Action Hampshire AGM, 2014
Publications
Cat is the author of a number of well-known books and reports, including:
A Lot of Give (published by Hodder & Stoughton, a round-up of research into giving described as ‘the book that any fundraiser based in the UK has been waiting for’)
Foundation Giving Trends (the annual series of reports on the Top 300 foundation grant-makers (by value of their giving), published by ACF)
Growing into Giving (a JRF report on young people’s charitable impulses)
Place-Based Giving Schemes: Funding, Creating and Engaging Stronger Communities (A DCMS-commissioned exploration that underpinned the Growing Place-Based Giving Programme)
Cat helped to pioneer some of the sector’s most well-know data sources, including:
UK Giving (annual individual giving updates)
CAF’s World Giving Index (annual reports on the funding environment in the UK and around the world)
SmallCharitiesData.org (an online data resource highlighting the value of small charities)
Take a look around the site to see examples of projects we have worked on and to give you an idea of how you might benefit from our help and expertise...
Projects include impact evaluation, quantitative and qualitative surveys, focus groups, analysis of your or third party data, research data visualisation, report-writing and presentation. For policy-focussed research, strategic research, impact assessment, membership profiling, analysis of potential or existing funding sources or other connected projects, just call the Doctor at The Researchery.
The Scoop, available in all good bookshops from March 2020
Cat has also used her storytelling talents to write a novel, The Scoop, published by RedDoor Press in 2020. The narrative contains many of Cat’s philosophical ideas about life, the universe and everything, alongside a cracking road trip tale.
Featured in The Independent, DIVA magazine, NB magazine, the Lancashire Times, GScene magazine, the Brighton magazine, CityGirl magazine, Out on the Page, the Sussex Times, the Stay-at-Home Literature Festival, Isolation Fest, Diary of a Debut Novelist, Radio Reverb, Resonance FM, the Scarborough Evening News and LoveReading’s #IndieBooksWeLove.
Longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize 2020
See more at Cat’s author site.