Our insight and learning function is crucial to Devon Community Foundation’s position as an expert, evidence-based grantmaker and our wider role as an advocate for Devon’s voluntary and community sector.
This work involves capturing and analysing both qualitative (words and experiences) and quantitative (numbers) data on unmet needs and untapped potential within Devon’s communities (often involving primary on-the-ground research).
It includes working with partners to better understand the voluntary and community sector in Devon. And we also work closely with grantholders to explore the value of the work they do, and the difference this makes to residents and communities.
With this knowledge, we encourage and shape local philanthropy and the priorities of other funders. We use our insights to develop funds and design projects that respond to the needs and opportunities that communities themselves have identified. And we draw on our resources to identify and highlight wider action needed in Devon to strengthen communities and tackle inequalities.
This page is a starting point to explore the many different areas of our insight and learning work.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss ways we could work together, please contact Dr Nicola Frost, our Head of Impact, Insight and Learning, at nfrost@devoncf.com.
We work closely with key stakeholders in Devon and beyond on various projects to strengthen communities and tackle inequalities in the county. Our partners include the University of Exeter, Devon County Council, the NHS and the Torbay, Plymouth and Devon VCSE Assembly. Learn more about some of the different strands of our insight and learning work below.
Since late 2020, we have been closely involved in a number of research and funding initiatives relating to food insecurity in Devon. As a result, we have built up considerable insight and expertise in this area, as well as forming some close links with partners locally. This has fed into a range of related grantmaking, designed in collaboration with our public sector colleagues.
DCF Insight Team is engaged with a number of learning and evaluation projects across the county. For example, DCF has chaired the VCSE Assembly’s Research Community of Practice (CoP) since its foundation in June 2024. The CoP brings together those within the voluntary sector in Devon with an interest in research or collaborating with academic and clinical researchers, and provides training opportunities to VCSE colleagues, to share best practice and to link with institutional researchers. The Insight Team has also worked with the NHS to evaluate placed-based health investment in communities; with the Eastern LCP to tackle social isolation and strengthen Social Health; with the NIHR to explore how best to engage VCSE organisations in academic research; and played a key role in the learning strand of the Ilfracombe Poverty Truth Commission.
DCF is collaborating with Somerset Community Foundation and the national research organisation IVAR, alongside a national steering group, to develop a project defining the field of rural philanthropy in a UK context. The project considers the relative lack of philanthropic funding in rural areas, as well as exploring appropriate ways of investing in rural communities.
In partnership with Devon County Council we designed and ran a pair of surveys aimed at understanding the nature, strengths and vulnerabilities of the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector across Devon. This information is valuable to partners, funders and the sector itself. Read all the data releases by clicking the button below.
Our journey with grantholders does not stop once a grant has been paid. We work closely with the community and voluntary groups we fund to understand the work they do and the difference this makes to communities, as well as exploring the opportunities and challenges that they encounter.
Wellbeing Exeter works alongside people to discover and develop opportunities and ideas on how to live and feel better and get connected to what matters to them. We have been closely involved with Wellbeing Exeter since 2017 and managed the programme until 2024. That role has now ended but we remain close friends of Wellbeing Exeter and are taking forward our extensive learning from this project into new pieces of work to address health inequalities in Devon.
