Research with Shelter Scotland’s Supporters
Diffley Partnership were commissioned to conduct qualitative research with Shelter Scotland supporters in early 2025.
Shelter Scotland, formed in 1968, is a charity working to ‘defend the right to a safe home’ and fight the housing emergency through campaigns, advice and support. As part of their 2022-2025 Strategic Plan, Shelter Scotland would like to increase their engaged supporter base, which requires knowledge about current supporters, including their reasons for supporting Shelter Scotland and the actions Shelter Scotland can take to maintain or enhance their engagement. By knowing their audience, Shelter Scotland can optimise their experiences engaging with the charity, encouraging greater support and sustained loyalty.
Having an established relationship with Shelter Scotland from previous successful commissions, we prepared a competitive tender for this commission. We were delighted to be appointed to conduct this qualitative research with Shelter Scotland supporters in early 2025. In total, we gained in-depth insights from 20 of the charity’s existing supporters.
Six in-person focus groups were conducted in central Glasgow and central Edinburgh in February. These were then supplemented by three online focus groups in April. After initial requests to take part in the research were issued by Shelter Scotland, we picked up all the arrangement for the focus groups, including ensuring informed consent, addressing queries, and payment of incentives.
We designed focus group facilitation guides and agendas in close cooperation with our client. Shelter Scotland provided various stimulus materials, including campaign pages, emails and videos, to test during the focus groups. This way we ensured to cover the most important Shelter Scotland materials within the time available for each 90-minute focus group.
For this project, Shelter Scotland were keen to observe the groups first hand, which we arranged making clear to participants in advance of their participation. We also produced mini reports of each focus group within five working days, so the charity had timely outputs to inform their team.
After the fieldwork was complete, we conducted qualitative analysis and produced a final report. Based upon the research findings we devised a series of recommendations for Shelter Scotland’s future communications to supporters and future research with supporters.
We enjoyed sharing and discussing our findings with Shelter Scotland and Shelter staff in a final presentation.
Methods
Qualitative- six in-person focus groups were conducted in central Glasgow and central Edinburgh in February. These were then supplemented by three online focus groups in April.
Outputs
- Mini-reports after each focus group
- With consent- shared recordings of focus groups with client
- Final report
- Final slides and presentation
Key research methods
- Facilitation
- Primary Research
- Qualitative
- Focus Groups
- Participant Recruitment
- Report Writing
- Presentation
