Grounded evidence.
Plural perspectives.
Critical inquiry.
Helping organisations make sense of complexity, challenge established thinking, and shape strategies and programmes grounded in evidence, context, and the knowledge, experience, and voices of those involved.
Explore servicesWhat is happening?
What needs to change?
For whom?
Humanitarian and development challenges are shaped by changing contexts, interconnected systems, different experiences, and unequal influence over how problems are understood and addressed. Evidence can be incomplete or contradictory, while established ways of working can become assumptions that are rarely questioned.
Plural Ground brings together evidence and different forms of knowledge to examine what is happening, what is working, what needs to change, and for whom. It deliberately looks for where evidence and perspectives converge, where they differ, where they contradict one another, and what may be missing rather than forcing complexity into a single story.
Plural Ground starts with people. Its approach recognises people as actors with their own priorities, capabilities, relationships, and strategies. From this starting point, Plural Ground examines how structures, institutions, resources, incentives, relationships, and power shape what people can do and the possibilities for change.
The purpose is practical: to turn a more grounded and critically examined understanding of complexity into clearer choices about what to retain, what to change, who needs to be involved, and what to do next.
Four areas of practice.
Services can be commissioned individually or combined where a question crosses strategy, evaluation, systems, and organisational change.
Strategy & Programme Design
Turning complex evidence and experience into coherent strategic choices.
Strategic reviews, programme design, Theory of Change, technical and cross-cutting approach (re)design, humanitarian and development strategy, and locally led approaches.
Evaluation, Evidence & Learning
Using evidence for quality, accountability, critical reflection, and learning.
Independent evaluations and reviews, mixed-method and participatory inquiry, evidence synthesis, organisational learning, and MEL strategy and systems.
Systems Analysis & Strategic Foresight
Understanding why patterns persist, where change may be possible, and what could happen next.
People-centred systems analysis, actor and power mapping, systems-informed Theory of Change, strategic foresight, and scenario planning.
Organisational Change & Quality
Identifying what enables or constrains quality, and supporting practical change.
Organisational and programme-quality reviews, evidence and learning systems, policies and standards, capacity development, and organisational change processes.
Strategic Partnerships & Influencing
Building relationships that advance shared goals.
Partner mapping and profiling, strategic positioning, shared priorities and learning, influence and advocacy, and strategic resourcing and funding intelligence.
Plurality does not
require consensus.
Plural Ground starts with people and the realities in which programmes, organisations, and systems operate. Different forms of evidence and knowledge are brought together, with attention to whose perspectives carry weight, whose may be missing, and how power shapes both problems and responses.
Analysis deliberately looks for convergence, divergence, contradictions, and gaps. Assumptions are tested rather than simply repeated, while critical inquiry also examines what is already working, where value is being created, and what can be built upon.
Explore the approach & toolkit- Key informant interviews
- Focus group discussions
- Mixed-methods research and evaluation
- Structured evidence review and synthesis
- Thematic analysis
- Evidence matrices
- Triangulation
- Most Significant Change
- Theory-based evaluation
- Contribution Analysis
- Outcome Harvesting
- Outcome Mapping
- Theory of Change
- Systems mapping
- Rich Pictures
- Stakeholder and actor relationship mapping
- Process mapping
- Causal mapping and causal loop diagrams
- Stakeholder and power analysis
- Political Economy Analysis
- Resource-flow mapping
- Scenario planning
- Driver mapping and analysis
- Strategic options appraisal
- Learning agenda and question development
- Assumption monitoring
- Stakeholder consultation
- Participatory workshop design and facilitation
- Appreciative Inquiry
- Facilitated collective sense-making
- Facilitated pause-and-reflect sessions
- Online workshop design and facilitation
Grounded in practice.
Across borders.
Experience spans the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe, across humanitarian response, protracted crisis, recovery, and longer-term development.
About Hannah & collaboration