“As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality exist in our world, none of us can truly rest.”
– Nelson Mandela
Poverty is not inevitable. But eliminating it requires starting in the right place.
Start with what matters
A practical approach to eliminating poverty – built on real conversation building agency and learning from lived experience.
What is SIGNAL
People tend to know what matters in their lives. But, this is not always the starting point for support.
Too often, services begin with what is wrong, rather than what matters.
SIGNAL starts with you – and your Life Map.
Building your Life Map provides a structured way to reflect, express and act on what matters to you – not as a one-off conversation, but as something that can be shared, understood and built on.
From real lives to shared insight
Every conversation creates insight.
When brought together, these insights show patterns in how people are living, what is helping, and where support is needed.
This moves beyond individual stories.
It creates a clearer, shared understanding that helps organisations respond in more informed, practical ways.
Instead of relying on assumptions, services can see what matters across communities and act on it.
The SIGNAL movement
A growing network shaped by practice
Across communities, organisations and systems, people are working together to understand what matters and take action.
This is not owned by a single organisation.
It grows through practice. Through real conversations, shared learning, and partners working together to respond to what matters in people’s lives.
No single organisation can respond to complex challenges alone.
SIGNAL provides a shared starting point. Partners bring the relationships, expertise and context to support people to move forward.
SIGNAL in practice
Real examples of how organisations are using SIGNAL to understand what matters, strengthen support and learn from people’s lived experience.
The Bridge Function: How a Third Sector Interface Helps Lived Experience Reach Strategic Decisions
How one Third Sector Interface is making lived experience more visible and usable within strategic decision-making – and testing whether being heard differently leads to changed services and funding. A conversation with Maureen Allan, Chief Officer of Volunteer Centre...
What Matters Is Powerful
A driving licence, taken by a landlord. A choice, in a Life Map, that had nothing to do with what a service would have flagged first. AB’s story shows what happens when what matters is allowed to lead.
Start With What Matters, Not What’s Wrong
Five years, many Life Maps later, one hard truth: the complexity was never in the people – it was in the system around them. As CFN closes, its Principal Officer asks what happens to hard-won learning when funding ends, but the need doesn’t.
Try the Demo
See how conversations are captured, reflected on, and turned into insight.