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Across the UK, many organisations are working hard to tackle the drivers of household financial strain: insecure incomes, problem debt, lack of appropriate products, and rising living costs.
Yet even the most committed organisations face a shared challenge—how to design and deliver support that genuinely reduces harm, works across systems, and stands up to scrutiny in an increasingly constrained funding and commissioning environment.
At the Centre for Responsible Credit (CfRC), we partner with commissioners, service providers, ethical lenders and funders to meet this challenge head‑on. We support the development of better services and products, generate robust independent evidence about what works, and help translate learning from delivery into wider system change.
If you are looking to strengthen prevention, resilience and long‑term impact for the people you support, we can help.
As a team we bring over-30 years experience of impact reporting, policy influence and agile service design to help organisations translate support for low-income households into stronger funding cases, clear delivery models, and wider public impact.
Our partnership offer
Working with us, you can benefit from support with service design, social impact reporting, and policy/research consultancy to influence reform. Our work is shaped by a clear understanding that debt and financial insecurity are structural issues, driven by how credit markets, welfare systems and public services interact.
1. Supporting service, system and product design
Looking to develop financial support approaches that go beyond short‑term crisis response? We support partners to design solutions that are preventative, integrated and focused on the drivers of financial hardship.
Our leadership of multi‑agency programmes such as Financial Shield, FlexMyRent and Breakthrough reflects extensive experience working across a wide range of systems—from health, housing and welfare, to advice, local government and community finance.
We understand the operational, funding and governanceconstraints partners face, and design accordingly.
We work with you to:
Scope problems clearly and realistically.
Develop and test new service or product approaches.
Refine delivery models to they align with mission, viability and operational reality.
A core part of this offer is our action research approach. Rather than separating design, delivery and evaluation into discrete stages, we integrate evidence on take‑up, behavioural response and capacity while programmes are live—allowing partners to adapt in real time and strengthening impact as services are delivered.
Crucially, this includes designing services that can operate across a spectrum of systems—reflecting how people experience financial hardship in practice, rather than expecting individuals to navigate fragmented support alone.
2. Robust, independent evidence you can use
When services or products are in place, funders, commissioners and Boards need confidence that they are working—and clarity about why. Working with CfRC gives you access to robust, independent impact evaluation to support real decision‑making and show the true value you create.
Our evaluations combine quantitative data analysis and surveys with in‑depth qualitative research, tailored to your context and objectives. This allows us to support attribution where outcomes are non‑linear and don’t follow a straight line.
Our social impact reporting can help you to:
Understand how services and products perform in practice.
Assess outcomes against comparators and benchmarks.
Evidence your wider system-level effects and public value.
Our aim is always to generate evidence you can use. When credibility matters—for funding, commissioning, regulation or governance—our methodological rigour provides a clear view of what works, for whom, and the conditions for roll-out or improvement.
A particular strength: Community finance insight
CfRC has long set the standard for social impact reporting in the affordable credit and community finance sector. We work with credit unions and ethical lenders to understand how products are experienced in practice, how borrowing and saving interact, and where trade‑offs arise between sustainability, risk and social impact.
This insight helps organisations refine product design, strengthen their evidence base, and demonstrate value to funders, boards and regulators.
"This report sets a new standard for impact reporting inthe affordable credit sector… the more we can all do to prove the social impactof affordable credit providers, the stronger the case for further investmentbecomes.”
— Fair4All Finance
“Reports by the Centre for Responsible Credit have beeninstrumental in helping us demonstrate our impact, strengthen our credibility,and build powerful relationships with investors, partners and policymakers.”
— Fair for You
3. From evidence to influence: turning delivery into system change
A recurring challenge across the sector is that project‑level evidence often fails to shape wider decisions about funding, commissioning or policy. CfRC’s work is distinguished by a clear focus on how evidence travels—and on how learning from services and products can inform reform at scale.
We work with organisations that are confident in their propositions to turn delivery evidence into influencing strategies that support more fundamental system change. This approach is reflected in our longstanding contribution to reforms across the credit and debt landscape—from shaping the UK’s high‑cost credit cap, to securing funding for community‑based debt advice, and driving large‑scale financial support programmes in partnership with public bodies.
We know change that lasts is built through collaboration. Our role is to ensure that what works on the ground drives broader reform and changes to systems.
Work with us
If you are designing or delivering financial support, exploring a new service or product, or looking to build a stronger evidence base for reform, we would welcome the conversation.
Our combination of deep sector knowledge, systems-change expertise, and methodological rigour provides you with strong design, research and influencing consultancy, and excellent sector value.
To discuss how we could support your work, please contact CfRC Chief Executive, Damon Gibbons on damon.gibbons@responsible-credit.org.uk
