Who is impacted by this policy? People and organisations who engage with Catalyst activities, either as contracted partners or as participants in research
Who has been involved in designing and agreeing this policy? Drafted by the Catalyst Producers, with input from Think Social Tech, CAST and ProMo-Cymru.

Agreed by: Megan Gray, Ellie Hale, Jo Morfee, Sheeza Shah (TBC) | | The key values related to this policy | Equity - we are committed to recognising the value of people’s time, expertise and lived experience.

Collectivism - we want to enable partners to participate in collaborative activities, without it feeling like a ‘nice to have’ or lower priority than the delivery work itself. |

Date adopted: 1 January 2022

Last reviewed:  1 March 2024

Next review due:  Ongoing iteration.

Purpose and Scope

This document sets out guidelines on how Catalyst ensures fair and equal reciprocity when it invites peoples’ participation in various activities. It applies to all Catalyst projects, initiatives and activities.

We want to recognise the importance of shared value. We aim to do this in two ways:

  1. Properly compensating people who share their time, experience and expertise as part of a Catalyst-supported activity. This is to avoid replicating harmful and extractive research practices, and is especially important for supporting those currently on the margins to engage and participate more actively in Catalyst activities. We call this our Reciprocity budget, which for 2024/25 is initially £10,000.
  2. Acknowledging the ‘overhead’ for our partners of working in a deeply collaborative, relational and participatory way in circles and working groups. We’ve learned this consumes more time and headspace than traditional (often more transactional) relationships, and this is typically never budgeted or allowed for, so either comes out of delivery costs, the partner’s organisational budgets or personal time. We call this our Participation budget, which for 2024/25 is initially £50,000.

Reciprocity will feel different for each individual, and may be achieved through monetary, goods, skills or acts of kindness exchange. This guide seeks to hold the tension of being flexible enough to accommodate different personal needs, with a desire for consistency so that we’re offering the same option/s and amount/s across all Catalyst projects, initiatives and activities.

This WIP policy is public as part of our commitment to working in the open - and we invite comments or revisions that will help us improve our practice.

How we reciprocate

Reciprocity offers include a number of options and are made either:

See below for ways to pay participants. Our hourly rate for most activities is £60, capped at £400 for a full day. All figures are + VAT (if applicable).

Please note that most payments in the table below are treated within Catalyst as ex gratia payments. Circle and working group participation and blog writing payments are treated within Catalyst as payments for services.

Activity Time Payment Benefits Skills development Tree planting
Event feedback forms Up to 5 mins N/A Ability to re-use event assets. Gain confidence in using tools (e.g Airtable, Typeform) We can plant 100 trees for every 12 ****feedback forms received.
Survey Up to 20 min N/A Ability to re-use assets. User research skills.
Gain confidence in using tools (e.g Typeform, Tally) Tree planting - as above
User research interview or testing session 20-60 mins £40-£60 Ability to re-use assets. User research skills.
Gain confidence in use of  tools (e.g Miro, JamBoard). Tree planting
Focus group 30 to 90 min £50-£90 Ability to re-use assets. Gain confidence in use of tools (e.g Miro, JamBoard). Tree planting
Case study interview 60 to 90 min £60-£90 Case study for own comms/ impact report Skills in  undertaking a user research interview Tree planting
Circle or working group participation 1 - 2 hrs/ week over a consecutive period of time £60 per hr, max. £400 per day Ability to re-use assets. Collaboration, team work, as well as topic specific skills (eg.: governance, service design, project delivery).
Gain confidence in use of tools (e.g Miro, JamBoard). Tree planting
Writing a blog for Catalyst Medium or website 1 - 3 hrs £60 per hr, max £300 Develop/practice of writing skills (the OWL resources are great to support novice writers) Tree planting

Payment types

This can be paid (or given as value exchange) in various ways, as below: