The impact is real. Now the evidence is too.
Signals is a new kind of evidence system. Frontline teams capture moments of change as they happen, by voice, text or photo. Signals turns them into rigorous, traceable evidence of impact.
Simple enough for the smallest organisation. Rigorous enough for the most demanding funder.
Frontline workers have always noticed the moments that matter. Signals makes them count.
A first for the third sectorThe first evidence system built for the point of delivery, where and when change actually happens. Created by third sector evaluators with over 30 years' experience in the field and learning from over 1,200 charities.
Everyone knows the work makes a difference. Almost no one can show it.
The clearest signs of change happen in moments. A young person speaks up for the first time. Someone says the words that show something has shifted. By reporting time, those moments are gone.
So reports get written from memory. Funders get stories they can't test. And the smaller the organisation, the wider the gap between what it achieves and what it can show.
It was never an impact problem. It's a timing problem.
Evidence that was never possible. Now it takes seconds.
Signals captures change at the only moment it can be captured: as it happens. Then it does the hard part for you.
Capture. Learn. Prove.
Capture.
Staff and volunteers record what they notice, in the moment. A voice note, a few words, a photo.
Learn.
Signals maps every observation to your outcomes and shows what's changing, how strong the evidence is, and why it's happening.
Prove.
Evidence-led reports in minutes. Every finding opens to the real moment behind it.
Not anecdotes. Evidence.
Triangulated
Two workers notice the same change, independently. A participant says it in their own words. Signals connects them, and tells you when they disagree.
Graded
Every outcome carries a strength rating: how many observers, over how long, in whose voice. Strong evidence is shown as strong. Thin is shown as thin.
Explains why
Signals tracks how change happens, not only whether it did. Teams and funders see what works, and why.
Feeds practice
The evidence flags questions: prompts for team meetings and supervision, drawn from what's been captured. Practice improves while the programme is still running.
Set up in a session. Embedded in weeks.
Describe your programme in your own words. Signals drafts your theory of change and checks the logic.
Share one link with your team. It works on any phone or device. No app, no training.
They capture what they notice. Signals suggests the outcome. They confirm with a tap.
Evidence builds on a live dashboard: what's strong, what's thin, what to ask next.
When it's time to report, the evidence is already there.
The evidence you've always wanted from grantees.
- See real change, not reconstructed stories. Evidence captured as it happened, not recalled months later.
- Know how far to trust it. Every outcome graded. Gaps shown, not hidden.
- Hear from every grantee. The smallest organisations report as credibly as the largest.
- Learn what works. Patterns across a whole cohort, aligned to your outcomes.
- Ask for less, get more. Evidence builds through the work itself. Reporting gets lighter, and better.
Young Futures: Tuesday Group
Young people are starting to ask for things for themselves.STRONG · 4 OBSERVERS · 9 WEEKS
Noticed independently by four workers · opens to 11 signals
Your true impact. Without the paperwork.
- Fits the working day. Seconds to capture. Nothing to install. Nothing to learn.
- No evaluator required. The rigour is built in, whatever your size or budget.
- Reports from real evidence. Drafted in minutes, in your team's and your participants' own words.
- A team that learns as it goes. See what's working while you can still act on it.
- Knowledge that stays. What your people notice no longer leaves when they do.
Easy to introduce. Stronger in a cohort.
Signals comes to groups of organisations at once, brought together by a funder, programme or network.
Set-up takes a single session. A little light support helps the habit stick. And Social Value Lab wraps each cohort in what matters most: shared learning between organisations, and evidence aligned to what funders need to see.
Intelligent where it helps. Human where it matters.
Signals puts AI to work on the jobs it does brilliantly: turning speech into text, reading handwriting, finding patterns across hundreds of observations, drafting reports in minutes. The judgement stays with people.
Confirmed by people.
Every suggestion is checked by the person who was there.
Traceable by design.
Every finding links back to a real observation. Nothing is invented.
Your data, always.
Owned by you. Never used to train AI.
Safe and secure.
Encrypted, access-controlled and stored in the UK.
Evaluation-grade.
Built on 30 years of evaluation practice, not a generic chatbot.
Proven with the sector.
In 2026, 12 frontline organisations put Signals to work: advice services, youth charities, arts centres, community trusts.
What we learned
Voice comes first.
Given a phone and sixty seconds, teams reached for voice notes before anything else. Quick, natural, done in seconds on the go.
The framework is half the value.
Describing their programme forced teams to sharpen what they were really trying to change. Many said set-up alone was worth it.
Honest evidence teaches more.
Where staff observations and participant feedback disagreed, Signals showed it. Teams learned more from that than from praise.
Reflection does the work.
The pause to capture sharpened how teams debriefed and questioned their own practice. Signals builds that in.
Built for the real world.
Advice services, holiday clubs, cafés, community trusts. Signals evolved through the pilot to fit how each team works.
In their words
There's no tutorials necessary. It's been very, very simple. When it comes to us doing evaluation for the funders, it's just sitting right there. It's wonderful.
For some staff it's exciting to feel their input is being recognised in a different way. The voice note immediately feels like it's freeing that time up. It's quite liberating.
I can finish a group, I can just sit in my car... What did I notice? And I can just voice record it. Takes two minutes, no time at all.
The softer outcomes are becoming more and more prevalent and we just had no way of recording them. This gives us exactly what we need.
The data that we're getting is really rich. It really isn't time consuming.
We've a small team and they've taken it on and are really excited about it. We're generally finding the app really game changing.
It's changed the nature of the conversation we have at the end of sessions. Now the conversations are much more detailed and nuanced about what we're actually seeing.
Once you're past the initial set-up, it's really super easy to use.
The reports lay it down very clearly. It helps us see why we're running a programme, not just that it's well attended.
Every organisation deserves to show its true impact.
Good evidence has always gone to those who could afford it. Signals changes that.
The proof of concept is done. Next come funder-led pilots, shaped around what funders need to see, then roll-out across the sector. We're looking for funders ready to lead the way.
Pilot with your grantees.
Bring Signals to a group of organisations you fund.
Shape what funders see.
Help design the reports and portfolio view around how you assess and learn.
Open it up.
Fund access for the small organisations who need it most.
Built by Social Value Lab.
Social Value Lab helps organisations plan, measure and communicate their social impact.
We believe good evidence shouldn't be a luxury. Rigorous evaluation has long been available only to organisations that could afford specialists. Signals puts it within reach of everyone doing good work, however small.
Signals is part of a family of tools from Social Value Lab.
Start seeing the change.
Every moment. Every organisation. Evidence you can stand behind.