We build for charities.

Consultancy, training and strategy to help charities get the most out of digital.

Meet the team
Contact us
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Design and digital to solve problems that matter

Founded by Ross McCulloch, the Third Sector Lab team have extensive experience of working in digital and design for charities, social enterprises, community groups and public sector. We understand your users and we understand you. We’ve trained thousands of charity staff to use digital and service design more effectively. We’re active members of the third sector digital community, regularly speaking at and hosting events to help non-profits. Based in Glasgow - delivering work across Scotland, the UK and beyond. We build websites, we help charities develop digital strategies and we empower teams to use social media as a tool to get their job done.

What we do

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Services

  • Digital strategy & transformation

  • User experience testing & research

  • Digital reviews

  • Website design

  • Video, animation and audio

  • Online campaigns

  • SEO

  • Copywriting

  • Google Ads Grant management

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Training

  • Service design methods for charity professionals

  • Data for decision making in charities

  • Social media strategy

  • Digital fundraising strategy

  • Google Analytics

  • Google and Facebook Ads

  • Writing for the web

  • Email marketing

  • SEO

  • Social media measurement

  • Bringing annual reports to life

  • Demonstrate impact using animation, video and multimedia content

We have a wide range of trainers who are experts in their field. We can deliver sessions in-house, at a venue of your choice, at one of our training spaces in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling and Dundee or online using Zoom Webinar.

Who we are

Third Sector Lab 2023 – © Julie Broadfoot

Ross McCulloch

Founder of Third Sector Lab, Ross leads on all digital strategy and consultancy work. Ross works with charities to help them use digital and social media as a tool to deliver organisational objectives. 

He is the founder Digital Trustees Scotland - a movement which aims to get a tech professional on every charity board. Ross developed and facilitates the highly-successful SCVO Digital Senior Leaders Programme. He also runs the CharityComms Scotland Networking Group and Third Sector Geeks WhatsApp Group to help strengthen the charity digital community.

Third Sector Lab 2023 – © Julie Broadfoot

Jenn Hood

Jenn is an award-winning digital designer. She is experienced in supporting a range of public and third sector projects with their overall communication strategy and visual style as well as working to develop existing communication channels. She was responsible for the viral #NoWrongPath campaign which has seen a reach of over 50M with over 23,000 contributors.

Third Sector Lab 2023 – © Julie Broadfoot

Robyn Barclay

Robyn has considerable communications experience in both paid and voluntary roles. She has handled social posting for high profile clients and was the winner of the Annabella Kirkpatrick Prize in 2022. Alongside her work at Third Sector Lab, she volunteers in a digital strategy and communications role for intersectional feminist website and community, Clitbait.

We work with a wide range of skilled and trusted associates to deliver the right team for your project.

Who we work with

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The Charity Digital Code of Practice

In record time we delivered a fully responsive, user-tested website for the Charity Digital Code. This is an incredible resource for the third sector, packed full of advice, best practice, toolkits and case studies.

Go to the Code
View more of our websites

SCVO

SCVO Digital Senior Leaders Programme

Our Director developed and facilitates the UK’s leading third sector digital leaders programme. The six month programme supports non-profit CEOs and other senior staff on their digital evolution journey. The sessions helps participants get to grip with data as a decision making tool, culture change, leadership, service design, cyber security and flexible technology.

Strategy

Inspiring Scotland social media strategy

We have worked with a range of funders including Inspiring Scotland, Corra Foundation, The National Lottery Community Fund Scotland, Impact Funding Partners and The RS MacDonald Charitable Trust to deliver social media training & planning workshops to grant holders. We’ve empowered charity staff to tell stories effectively, demonstrate impact and use online channels to engage audiences.

Recruitment

CCPS rethinking care sector recruitment

We took a service design approach to help Coalition of Care and support Providers in Scotland members rethink online recruitment. This rapid workshop helped members better understand care sector job hunters’ needs and how technology can deliver a better recruitment experience. The findings from the session have helped underpin a new online social care strategy for Scotland.

Get in touch

Get in touch to book a workshop or speak to us about a project.

Contact us

What our clients say

Jacqui Taylor

Chief Executive, LifeLink

I've had the pleasure of working with Ross for a couple of years now. Ross is one of the very few people I know who has an incredible mind simply full of information when it comes to digital, social media and the third sector.

Closeup of a man working on a computer outside.

David Husband

Digital Engagement Manager, National Trust for Scotland

Ross was a speaker at a staff training session for those interested in getting more out of social media. He delivered a great presentation which inspired and enlightened the audience. From start to finish he had the audience engaged and shared brilliant examples of social media in practice.

Beverly

Beverley Hart

Communications and Marketing Director at Scotland Food & Drink

Ross has clearly learnt the mystic arts from the Ancient One in Doctor Strange - his three hour digital training course felt more like three minutes as we travelled fast paced through a 'packed with really useful insights' session on getting the most our of our social channels. He pitched it just right and our team follow-up session the next day showed just how much everyone had enjoyed the training and learnt from the day before.

David Hodson

David Hodson

Locality Manager at Tweeddale Youth Action

After recently attending one of Ross's McCulloch's social media training sessions in Galashiels I'd like to whole-heartedly recommend his training. Ross clearly has a thorough understanding of how social media works and was able to deliver a very practical training session on how best to utilise it to communicate with our young people and raise our youth club profile.

Kenny McDonald

Kenny McDonald

Head of Marketing, Recruitment and Communications at Project Trust

Ross really knows his stuff. Very approachable too. I've been in contact with Ross on and off through various projects over recent years, including speaking at a well organised local event he delivered in Angus. Pitched, in my opinion, at the right level, it must have been a rich experience for attendees, such is Ross's knowledge on the subject of digital engagement.