The Challenge

The Scouts has a long-standing ambition to be a national youth movement that is genuinely open to all. Yet its membership profile did not reflect the diversity of the communities it sought to serve - particularly Black British young people and families.

With less than 6% of members identifying with a minority ethnic background, the organisation needed to move beyond intent and into evidence-led audience growth. The task was to understand where relevance was breaking down, what was getting in the way of participation, and how to act with clarity - at executive, staff, and volunteer levels.

Our Role

We partnered with The Scouts to identify and unlock new audience opportunities by applying an Inclusion-led Relevance lens to growth.

Rather than starting with assumptions, we designed a research approach that centred on lived experience, surfaced real barriers, and translated insight into clear, practical direction for decision-makers across the organisation.

What We Delivered

Our work followed a focused Unpack → Untangle → Unlock pathway:

• Priority audience definition
  Black British communities were identified as a strategic growth audience—enabling depth of understanding rather than diluted insight.

• Insight and foresight methodology
  A mixed-methods approach created safe spaces for:

  • Existing Black Scouts members to share lived experiences

  • Prospective members to articulate what would make the organisation feel relevant, welcoming, and worth joining

• Online research community
  An engaged cohort of 24 prospective members participated in structured discussion and exploration over time.

• Large-scale qualitative study
  Insight was gathered from 700+ potential members, allowing comparison across different audience groups to identify both shared and specific barriers.

• Organisation-wide playback
  Findings were shared across the organisation, building collective understanding and alignment beyond specialist teams.

• Leadership deep dives
  Targeted sessions with senior leaders translated insight into implications for strategy, messaging, and experience design.

The Impact

• Clear, evidence-based understanding of perceptions, motivations, and barriers to participation

• A practical, accessible action plan outlining what to do and what to avoid when engaging Black British audiences

• Greater organisational clarity on how inclusion can directly support awareness, engagement, and membership growth

• Stronger internal alignment across leadership, staff, and volunteers around next steps

Inclusion shifted from a values statement to a growth insight discipline - supporting more confident, audience-led decision-making.