Leila Baker

Leila is an experienced researcher who has been working in the third sector for twenty years, starting out as a volunteer in homelessness hostels in London and Oxford and including a stint as Shelter’s Research Manager between 1995 and 2004. Leila has worked as a volunteer, practitioner and trustee as well as researcher with a wide variety of small voluntary and community organisations, local authorities and housing associations as well as national charities and think tanks.

Currently, Leila’s main areas of work are: strategic review of VCS organisations; practical tools and resources for organisations to assess the difference they make; and strategic learning for large scale programmes such as Big Local, a £20m endowment from the Big Lottery Fund.

Leilais a Director of Fundamental Architectural Inclusion, a non profit community engagement project in the London Borough of Newham and a former Fellow of London East Research Institute, University of East London. She has a particular interest in participatory research and inclusive approaches to the delivery of voluntary and public services.