Client story
The MCS Foundation
MEAL Framework and Toolkit
The MCS Foundation is a UK charity on a mission to make every home in the UK carbon-free by 2050. Originally established to oversee the MCS standards scheme for small-scale renewable energy technologies, the Foundation now plays a far broader role – driving systemic change through advocacy, research, grant-making, and programme development. Their work spans critical areas such as retrofitting homes, building the low-carbon skills base, and campaigning for policy and regulatory change to support the transition to clean energy.
The MCS Foundation had an in-depth Theory of Change as a starting point and needed to understand whether their work was achieving its intended impact. We supported them in creating a Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Framework, Plan, and Toolkit.
The Challenge
The Foundation recognised that their existing Theory of Change would benefit from simplification to make it easier to use. The charity also had no clear framework for measuring whether its work was achieving its intended impact.
The team had a high-level understanding of what needed to be measured, but needed support to clarify their next steps. They also faced particular challenges – evaluating advocacy work.
Additionally, they needed to balance internal learning needs with accountability to funders, stakeholders, and partners. Their growing and ambitious agenda required a monitoring and evaluation approach that was proportionate, robust, and easy to embed across the organisation.
“Evaluating advocacy has always been a challenge and we want to be confident that we are doing the right thing.”
DR RICHARD HAUXWELL-BALDWIN
Head of Research, Policy & Campaigns
The MCS Foundation
Our Solution
We developed a comprehensive MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning) Framework, Plan and Toolkit tailored to The MCS Foundation’s structure, goals and ways of working.
- Through desk research and interviews with key staff, we carefully listened to their priorities and challenges, ranging from measuring systemic change to building a learning culture.
- We co-designed a set of clear and practical evaluation questions aligned with their Theory of Change. These were structured to help teams understand their reach, quality of delivery, impact, and the learning that resulted. Evaluation questions were tailored to each area of work – from public affairs and communications to grants and the Local Area Retrofit Accelerator (LARA) pilot.
- We simplified their Theory of Change by creating two logic models. These visuals made it easier for teams to engage with and use the MEAL approach in their day-to-day work.
- The final MEAL Plan included a practical toolkit to guide data collection and reflection, as well as an Excel-based MEAL Framework to track progress. We supported the team to introduce reflective learning practices, such as quarterly activity reviews, and outlined how future external evaluations could build on the framework.
The Result
The MEAL Framework offers a practical approach to evaluating its contribution to systemic change, supporting internal reflection, strategic decision-making, and reporting.
Feedback from the team has been overwhelmingly positive:
“The M&E Guide is very thorough, recognises some of the challenges we have in attributing impact, but sets out a clear and logical path towards measuring progress towards our goals. The logic model is one of the standouts of the paper – it is really clear.”
DR RICHARD HAUXWELL-BALDWIN
Head of Research, Policy & Campaigns
The MCS Foundation
What was Insley Consulting like to work with?
“We now have a clear plan for evaluating the organisation.”
Alastair Mumford
Programmes Director
The MCS Foundation
Find out more about The MCS Foundation here: mcsfoundation.org.uk