About us

Braw Data is a research consultancy that specialises in data analytics, research, and evaluation for the civil society sector. We were founded in 2018 by Alasdair Rutherford and Diarmuid McDonnell — two social scientists who had spent their careers researching civil society organisations and saw that the methods and data infrastructure being developed in universities had direct, practical value for the sector itself.

Our flagship research project, the UK Third and Civil Society Sector Database, was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and built in collaboration with researchers at the Universities of Birmingham, Southampton, Stirling, and the West of Scotland. It links data from multiple official registers of civil society organisations - derived from charity, company, care and housing regulators - into a single UK-wide dataset covering the organisational histories of hundreds of thousands of charities, social enterprises, and community interest companies. No equivalent dataset exists anywhere else.

We bring that research infrastructure and methodological depth into our consultancy work. Where most consultancies offer surveys and descriptive reporting, we also offer causal inference, econometric modelling, natural language processing, survival analysis, and large-scale data linkage — applied specifically to the questions that charities, regulators, and funders need answered.

We are based in Scotland in the UK, but work with clients internationally.

What we do

Our work focuses on three areas:

Research and evaluation. We design and deliver rigorous research and evaluation projects, from programme evaluations and needs assessments to large-scale analytical studies using administrative data. Our methods include quasi-experimental evaluation designs, survey research, longitudinal analysis, and evidence synthesis. We help organisations understand not just what happened, but what difference it made and why.

Data science and analytics. We work with large, complex datasets — linking records across registries, extracting and classifying information from thousands of documents using natural language processing, and building analytical pipelines that turn raw administrative data into usable insight. We use modern tools including machine learning and large language models, but always in the service of answering well-defined research questions with appropriate rigour.

Training and development. We deliver training in data analytics, research methods, and data literacy for organisations that want to build their own capacity. Our courses are taught at the National Centre for Research Methods, the global training platform Instats, the Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences, the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data, and universities, as well as in bespoke sessions for individual organisations. The training we deliver is grounded in the same methods we use in our own research and consultancy.

Who we work with

Our clients include charity regulators, government departments, foundations, and third sector organisations across the UK and Ireland. We have delivered projects for the Scottish Charity Regulator, Power to Change, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, YouthLink Scotland, and the Young Women's Trust, among others. We also contribute to academic research programmes and collaborate with university-based researchers on studies of charity regulation, accountability, and organisational dynamics.

We are based in Scotland but work with clients across the UK and internationally.

What makes us different

Three things distinguish Braw Data from other research consultancies working in this space.

First, data infrastructure that nobody else has. The UK Third Sector Database that we developed gives us access to linked, longitudinal data on hundreds of thousands of organisations across all four UK nations. Most research consultancies work with data from dozens or hundreds of organisations. We work with the population.

Second, methods that go beyond description. We don't just report what the data show — we use the analytical tools of quantitative social science to identify causal relationships, model trajectories, detect patterns in text, and distinguish signal from noise. These are methods common in academic research and government analysis but rarely available to the charity sector.

Third, deep knowledge of the sector itself. We have spent our careers researching how charities and social enterprises are structured, funded, regulated, and held to account. That domain expertise means we understand the data we work with — its quirks, its limitations, and what it can and cannot tell you — in a way that a general-purpose analytics firm cannot. We have also served as treasurers and trustees of charity boards.