Our work as consultants shape the future of organisations and individuals we work with, so equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) are highly relevant, while the journey towards EDI usually involves a long and winding road. How do we ensure that EDI can be considered at each step of any consultancy project?

In summer 2020, in the aftermath of the brutal murder of George Floyd and the rise of #BlackLivesMatter movement, NCVO’s consultancy team wanted to explore what an anti-racist evaluation could look like. In 2022, NCVO launched five anti-oppressive consultancy principles and for the past six months the team have adopted this pro-active and deliberate strategy to embedding EDI across all their work. Each year NCVO consultants train and work with more than 1,000 voluntary organisations. This includes to deliver external evaluations and learning partner support for a wide range of charities and voluntary organisations, alongside support with governance and strategy development.

Sini Rinne-Kerridge has 20 years of experience researching, developing, and evaluating social and economic wellbeing initiatives for public and not-for-profit sector. She is a subject lead in strategy and impact, and responsible for NCVO’s proposition focused on strategy and evaluation. Previously, Sini worked for a policy consultancy where she specialised in evaluation and research of policy advocacy and campaign initiatives, public sector partnerships, complex needs initiatives, and equality, diversity and inclusion. Sini is an advisory panel member for What Works Centre for Wellbeing and chairs NCVO’s Research Ethics Committee. She led the development and implementation of NCVO’s anti-oppressive consultancy principles.