Our Team
The Impactful Evaluation Team
Impactful Evaluation is led by a small team of evaluation and social research specialists who understand the realities of delivering services in the charity and public sectors. We combine rigorous research methods with a collaborative, practical approach, helping organisations generate evidence that is useful, meaningful and grounded in the experiences of the people they support.
For detailed team profiles, see our Evaluation Consultants page.
Paul Parker
Director
Paul is Director of Impactful Evaluation and Charity Fundraising Ltd, bringing more than 25 years’ experience of working with charities and VCSE organisations across the UK. He leads major evaluation and impact projects, combining strategic oversight with hands-on delivery, and brings particular strengths in quantitative analysis, systems thinking and economic evaluation.
His route into evaluation grew out of a long-standing background in charity fundraising and a practical understanding of the importance of measuring and communicating impact well. Through Charity Fundraising Ltd, he continues to support organisations with fundraising, impact, business planning and strategy development, bringing together these different perspectives to help organisations strengthen both their evidence and their decision-making. He has developed outcomes frameworks and delivered external evaluations for more than 50 organisations, ranging from small local charities to large national organisations, infrastructure bodies, NHS organisations, local authorities and funders. His sector experience spans health and mental health, disability, homelessness, environment, community development and a wide range of other social causes. He has led a number of complex programme and multi-year evaluations. These include the evaluation of the Compass and East London Foundation Trust CAMHS Provider Collaborative grants programme, which involved developing a retrospective programme outcomes framework and aligning evidence across 47 voluntary sector grantees using a mix of standardised and bespoke outcome measures. More recently, he led the evaluation of Catch22’s The Hive, a service supporting at-risk young people aged 16–24 in Camden. This included economic analysis of potential statutory cost avoidance and contributed evidence to wider policy discussions involving local and national mental health leaders. He has also led the first year of a multi-year national evaluation of Carers Trust’s Carers Fund, exploring its impact on unpaid carers’ financial circumstances, health and wellbeing alongside its wider systems and policy value. His work combines detailed analysis with a strong focus on practical usefulness. He is equally comfortable working with senior leaders, service managers and frontline teams, and aims to make complex evidence accessible and relevant to the decisions organisations need to make. Based in the South East, he works with clients across the UK.
Steph Prentis
Head of Consultancy
Steph brings more than 20 years’ experience of working with charities and public sector organisations across health and wellbeing, heritage, environment and community development, with particular expertise in evaluation, impact and organisational development. She has worked with us since 2012, managing our consultancy team for the past six years.
Steph has managed and overseen a wide range of large-scale and multi-year evaluations, from complex health and mental health programmes to heritage, environmental and community projects. Her experience includes work with the Welsh Dee Trust, Sickle Cell Society, the North Central East London CAMHS Provider Collaborative, the Association of Mental Health Providers, East Wear Bay Archaeological Project and St Matthew’s Church. Alongside evaluation, Steph has extensive experience of helping organisations strengthen their monitoring and evaluation practice and make better use of evidence. She has led a major capacity-building programme for Carers Trust Network Partners, supporting individual organisations to develop more effective and proportionate approaches to monitoring, evaluation and learning. Steph also has a strong track record of supporting organisations to develop projects and secure major funding. This includes successful work with Sevenoaks District Council and Kent Wildlife Trust, St Mary’s East Bergholt, North Sea Conservation and Whitby Marine Discovery Centre, as well as experience of major funders and programmes including the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Climate Action Fund. Across her work, Steph has engaged with organisations serving a diverse range of communities and beneficiary groups. She brings a collaborative and practical approach, helping organisations develop evaluation and impact approaches that are inclusive, proportionate and useful for both learning and decision-making.
Lynn Simmonds
Evaluation & Fundraising Consultant
Lynn is an evaluation specialist with more than 20 years’ experience across the voluntary sector, spanning evaluation, grant-making, programme development and fundraising. She brings particular expertise in qualitative and participatory research, Theory of Change and impact measurement, with extensive experience across arts and culture, heritage, disability and community programmes.
Lynn has worked from both funder and delivery perspectives, including senior roles managing major grant and cultural programmes. Her experience includes Youth Music and Mayor of London youth funding programmes, as well as directing Liberty EU, a €2.6 million Creative Europe-funded programme involving partners across Europe and exploring identity, place and youth culture. She has worked as a consultant for more than a decade, helping organisations understand, evidence and communicate their impact. At NPC, she worked on the UK-wide Inspiring Impact programme, supporting charities to strengthen their impact practice, and developed shared measurement approaches, Theory of Change models and evaluation frameworks for national and local charities and voluntary-sector infrastructure organisations. She has also delivered training to help organisations develop and use their own Theory of Change models. Lynn brings particular strengths in inclusive and participatory evaluation. She has extensive experience engaging people with lived experience through interviews, workshops and co-produced approaches, and has provided dedicated access support to diverse-led organisations and disabled senior leaders. In 2025, she led an Arts Council England-commissioned evaluation exploring barriers to disabled leadership in the arts and cultural sector, incorporating accessible approaches including BSL interpretation, Easy Read materials and accessible public reporting. Her evaluation experience spans arts and culture, heritage, disability, community development and social impact. This includes National Lottery Heritage Fund projects exploring identity, culture and place, as well as work with Impactful Evaluation assessing programmes for disabled people and their families, including Newlife’s Motability Foundation-funded programme. Alongside evaluation, Lynn has substantial experience of organisational development and fundraising, which she continues to deliver through her combined role as a fundraising consultant with Charity Fundraising Ltd.
Hannah Belcher Bennett
Evaluation Consultant
Hannah is an experienced researcher and evaluator with more than 13 years’ experience across the charity, academic and public sectors. She specialises in mixed-methods evaluation, with particular expertise in mental health, disability and inclusion, combining strong quantitative and statistical skills with user-led, participatory approaches to research.
Before joining Impactful Evaluation, Hannah was a Lecturer at King’s College London, where she specialised in user-led research and co-produced participatory methods, and led and supervised research across neurodivergence, disability and mental health. She has also held senior evaluation roles within the charity sector, including as Senior Evaluation Officer at Mind. Hannah has led national and multi-partner evaluations across the voluntary sector and NHS. Her experience includes evaluating Mind’s Whole School Approach and Mentally Healthy Universities programmes, as well as major funding programmes including the Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund delivered in partnership with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. She has also managed and coordinated work involving organisations including Citizens Advice and the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute. She brings particular expertise in quantitative analysis and outcome measurement, including the development, use and analysis of psychometric and standardised measures. Her NHS experience includes leading the development and evaluation of a money advice service within NHS Talking Therapies in South London, using measures including PHQ-9 and GAD-7 to assess outcomes. Alongside this, Hannah has extensive experience of developing Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning frameworks and outcomes frameworks for charities and community organisations, including the Sickle Cell Society, Pear Tree and Family Based Solutions. She has also developed expertise in economic and Value for Money evaluation, contributing to cost-benefit and wider systems analysis for projects including Catch22, Dudley Lodge and the Sickle Cell Society. Hannah’s approach places particular emphasis on accessibility, participation and ensuring that the experiences of people using services meaningfully shape evaluation. She combines rigorous analysis with practical, action-focused reporting, helping organisations use evidence not simply to demonstrate impact, but to improve services and inform future decisions.
Rachel Poynor
Evaluation Consultant
Rachel is an experienced evaluator with more than 12 years’ experience working across the voluntary sector in evaluation, project management, service development and fundraising roles. She specialises in qualitative and quantitative research, with particular expertise in designing research tools, developing outcomes frameworks and engaging people with lived experience.
Rachel has worked across a wide range of health and social issues, including mental health, disability and neurodivergence, homelessness, carer support, end-of-life care, financial hardship, rehabilitation and modern slavery. Before moving into consultancy, her charity-sector experience included roles with organisations such as Marie Curie, Beat, Working Chance and Ella’s. Her evaluation work combines robust analysis with a strong emphasis on understanding people’s experiences. She has led and contributed to research involving surveys, interviews, focus groups and other qualitative approaches, working with service users, frontline teams and wider stakeholders to understand not only whether change has occurred, but how and why. Recent projects have included evaluations for Canterbury Archaeological Trust, the British Liver Trust, Sickle Cell Society, Dudley Lodge, Cambridge Cyrenians and Supporting Carers and Families Together. Rachel led the evaluation of Canterbury Archaeological Trust’s East Wear Bay Archaeological Project, developing research tools and assessing the impact of its heritage and community engagement programme. The final evaluation received particularly positive feedback from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Rachel holds a BA (Hons) in Social Anthropology and an MSc in Public Policy, with training in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Her academic research included ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda and research into co-production in adult social care, involving qualitative work with experts by experience and local authorities. Alongside her professional work, Rachel has continued to be involved in community and voluntary organisations. She is a trustee of a local charity providing subsidised counselling and has volunteered with FoodCycle and her local community shop, giving her an additional practical perspective on how smaller community organisations operate.