Since 2017 we’ve helped over 100 social-purpose organisations on their impact journey, from end-to-end. Our work begins with the formulation of impact strategy and follows through to the management of impact data.
We facilitate problem-solving processes that increase operational effectiveness, create workable outcome frameworks, and improve the quality of data that gives credibility to the organisation’s impact messaging. 

Key partners

We are a longstanding Development Partner with the Lloyds Bank Foundation delivering impact management consultancy for charities receiving support from the LBF ‘Enhance’ programme. Our Cimplify CRM solution is one of only a small number of charity-specific technologies endorsed and supported by LBF.

Goodlabs is also a fully-badged Salesforce Consulting Partner, specialising in getting the most out of their powerful CRM platform for busy charities. This partnership supports our mission to make powerful, impact-focused technology accessible to organisations that work directly with people and communities.

Our Story

Goodlabs was founded by Matt Wilson, a former charity Chief Executive, growing out of his 20-year career in the sector.

Matt saw that many organisations were being asked to demonstrate impact, whilst at the same time working within the limitations of strategies and technologies that made day-to-day delivery harder rather than easier.

Staff were often working across multiple systems that didn’t fit together, creating additional admin and frustration. In some cases, this affected the quality and consistency of the support being provided, with poorly designed processes getting in the way of achieving hoped-for outcomes with services users.

At the same time, organisations were expected to report back to funders using data that was difficult to capture, fragmented, and often disconnected from how services actually operated.

Goodlabs was created to address these gaps — helping organisations design systems that support both effective delivery and meaningful insight.

Our Approach

Our work is grounded in a simple principle:

Systems should work with the grain of delivery, not rub against it.

We focus on enhancing operational approaches so that they:

• reflect how services actually operate

• reduce unnecessary complexity and duplication

• are proportionate to the size and capacity of the organisation

• generate insight that is genuinely useful, not just reportable

This means working closely with teams, understanding their context, and building solutions that people will use with confidence.

Internally, we operate as a small senior team, working directly with clients to understand their services in detail. This allows us to stay close to the work — ensuring that what we deliver is relevant, practical and impactful. Where appropriate, we collaborate with a network of trusted partners and specialists to support delivery. We like to build long-term relationships our clients, providing consistent, iterative support, year after year.

CRM systems and Data Management

Many organisations are fighting a losing battle against an array of complicated spreadsheets. Working this way is both insecure from a data point of view and inefficient in terms of actually managing large numbers of client interactions. Goodlabs has connections with the leading software providers in the field of impact measurement, and a particular specialism in the Salesforce CRM platform. If you want to make your qualitative and quantitative data more transparent using state-of-the-art dashboards and data reporting tools check out our bespoke CRM solution: Cimplify.

Other sectors served

As well as our core work with charities and social enterprises we also undertake projects for commercial and public sector bodies.

Public Sector

Our relationship with the Public Sector typically involves acting in the role of Independent Evaluation and/or Learning Partner. Given the considerable pressures on budgets, partners such as Local Authorities and NHS Trusts need to know that their work, whether directly delivered or externally procured, is achieving its intended aims.

Beginning with the drafting of evaluation frameworks and progressing to design and deliver fieldwork Goodlabs, along with our associates, has the research skills to ensure that results are reliably reported and learning effectively captured.

The programmes we support are commonly longitudinal in nature, extending over multi-year time frames. Our input if often provided in the form of design support in the preparation stage of a new programme of work, ongoing monitoring during its period of being live, and final evaluation at the conclusion of the work.

Corporate

Many businesses are rightly concerned to ensure that as well as creating profit they also benefit the communities they serve. Support from Goodlabs ensures these efforts are meaningful and successful for all parties involved.

We’re particularly interested in helping business clients to figure out the ‘S’ of CSR – the social dimensions of being a responsible business. In recent years there has been a growing sense of dissatisfaction with a ‘box ticking’ approach to charity support and employee volunteering. If you’re serious about making a positive contribution to society we’d be delighted to help you deliver on that ambition.