Consulting our users


A great many people and organisations have helped us develop the GuideStar UK website. During two years of development and a lengthy series of meetings and workshops we've obtained valuable advice and feedback from representatives of charities, donors, funders, professional advisers, researchers and government.

They've helped us decide what information we should include and how we should go about collecting it.

Early in the process, representatives from a random sample of charities reviewed the site's content and gave us feedback on the quality of the information we had obtained.

We developed an on-line questionnaire so that users could tell us how they wanted to search the tens of thousands of entries on the site.

Finally, during September and October 2005, all 167,000 charities represented on the site were given an opportunity to view their individual entries prior to the public launch. Feedback from this preview helped us to improve the content and format of individual entries and the design of the on-line tools that enable charities to add to and edit their information.

Throughout the development of the site our User's Group met regularly to comment on the development of the website from a user's point of view.

The members of the GuideStar UK Users' Group were:

  • Karl Wilding, Head of Research, NCVO (Chair)
  • Ken Ashford, Principal Accountant, The Charity Commission
  • Jenny Field, Principal Grants Officer, Bridge House Trust
  • Carol Monoyios, Marketing Director, Care International
  • Claire Newton, Finance Director, Marie Curie (Charity Finance Directors' Group nominee)
  • Cathy Pharoah, Director of Research, Charities Aid Foundation
  • Roger Ward, Head of Personal Sector, Office of National Statistics
  • Andrew Watt, Head of Policy & Deputy CEO, Institute of Fundraising
  • Meta Zimmeck, Head of Voluntary & Community Research, Home Office

Help us to improve

We want to make www.guidestar.org.uk as easy for you to use as possible - and we would welcome your suggestions both for improvements to the site and for new services that we might offer.

Please send your comments and suggestions to feedback@guidestar.org.uk - opens new browser window.