Analysing engagement and impact data at OnSide Youth Zones
Client: OnSide Youth Zones
Date: May — August 2025
Work: Outsourced data team, Research and analysis, Impact measurement
About the organisation
OnSide is a national youth charity that empowers young people to lead positive, fulfilling lives by funding a network of 15 youth centres (known as ‘Youth Zones’) in the UK’s most economically disadvantaged areas. OnSide produce an annual impact report and commissioned Data Orchard to provide analysis and insight that could be used in this public-facing report, as well as to inform internal strategy and service improvement.
What we did
OnSide provided an anonymised data extract which included outcome indicators from participants’ pre- and post-intervention survey responses, which we analysed using Excel and R. We developed the analysis in an iterative manner, reviewing findings with OnSide at regular intervals to inform further questions.
Duncan Hall, Head of Systems and Impact, said:
“Communication was fantastic throughout. Hannah, our Data Analyst, was very flexible and prepared to work with us, listening to our ideas and thoughts for further exploration as the analysis progressed.”
We submitted a final report which that summarised the analysis of demographic and outcome data, along with full descriptive metadata, tidied datasets, and annotated R Markdown files.
As a result of the work, OnSide report they have:
Improved ability to act on analysis
Increased knowledge about how to measure impact
Improved data collection, analysis and reporting processes
Duncan said:
“The data has been used in producing our impact report for 2024/2025. Insights produced are also being used in a network-wide project on improving engagement across young people accessing Youth Zones. The insight is also driving internal discussions on further improvements to our evaluation framework and data collection. ”
Next steps
OnSide have said they will use the outputs of this project to:
Evidence impact and need
Inform future planning and strategy
Improve services
Secure data resources (e.g. roles, skills, tools, consultancy)