If you're considering working with us, these are the questions people ask most often. We've tried to answer the awkward ones too — including who we're not a good fit for.
Last updated: 12 May 2026
Yes. NorthGate Collective works with charities, social enterprises, and community groups across the UK — typically those with fewer than 20 staff and no dedicated operations person. Most of the work is hands-on process redesign and tooling, billed hourly.
Probably not. If you already have a COO, an operations manager, or a dedicated tooling team, you'll get more out of a specialist vendor than from us. NorthGate Collective is built for organisations under 20 people who are running ops on the side of their actual job.
Yes — especially if admin is eating into evenings and weekends. We've designed the engagement model to work for one-person operations: hourly billing, no retainer, fix what's broken and move on.
Usually not. An outside perspective can still help for one-off process reviews, but the day-to-day value of NorthGate Collective is highest when there's nobody internally focused on operations. If you have an ops manager, hire us for a strategy session, not an ongoing engagement.
We're UK-focused. NorthGate Collective is based in Reading and most clients are within easy travel distance, but remote work across the UK is fine. We don't currently take on clients outside the UK.
You get time back to focus on the people you serve — your customers, members, or beneficiaries — instead of paperwork. NorthGate Collective also leaves you with a clearer view of where your operation was actually losing time, so the next round of improvements is yours to make.
No. You own the systems we build. We document everything — what each piece does, how to change it, who to call if it breaks — and hand it over. The aim is to make ourselves unnecessary, not indispensable.
That's the most common starting point, and it's a good one. An outside view often spots things you've stopped noticing because they've always been "just how we do it." Our first conversation is usually about finding the right thing to fix, not fixing it.
Yes. The most public example is our work with All Yours Period Box, a UK charity sending free period products to people in need — we rebuilt the request-handling process so the team could spend their time on the cause instead of the admin.
We charge £100 an hour for hands-on work and £300 for a one-off strategy session. The first 30-minute intro call is free. There's no minimum project size — small fixes are welcome.
No, deliberately. Subscriptions only work for the supplier when customers don't use what they pay for, and we'd rather charge for the work we actually do. NorthGate Collective bills hourly so the cost matches the value — when there's nothing to fix, you stop paying.
We stop. Because billing is hourly, you can pause an engagement at any natural breakpoint without breaking a contract or owing the rest of a retainer. We'll leave you with a clear write-up of what's done and what's left, so picking it back up later is straightforward.
No. We tell you the hourly rate up front and bill against time worked. Where tools cost money, we'll say so before you commit — and most of what we recommend is free or open-source, which is a deliberate choice.
Mostly remote, with onsite visits where they help — typically the first session for process discovery, and any handover or training session. Most clients are within a couple of hours of Reading; further afield, remote works fine.
Most engagements start with a free 30-minute call to see if we're a fit, then a paid strategy session to map out what's actually broken and what to fix first. After that, it's hands-on work in bite-sized chunks — usually a few hours a week until the change is in place.
Access to whatever system or process we're improving, plus an hour or two of your time each week while the work is in progress. NorthGate Collective doesn't need detailed specs or formal documentation up front — most of our discovery happens in conversation with the people doing the work.
A process review and recommendations: typically 1–2 weeks. A full rebuild of one process (the All Yours scope, for example): 3–6 weeks of part-time work spread across a couple of months. Most clients see meaningful time savings within the first month.
Sparingly, and only where it earns its place. The people we work with are often understandably wary of AI — it's been over-sold and oversimplified in their sector — so NorthGate Collective leads with proven tools first. AI is one option among many, not the headline.
Because they keep you in control of your own systems and your own data. Free and open-source tools — things like n8n for automation, NextCloud for files, or self-hosted CRMs — also mean you're not paying a monthly subscription that quietly grows every year. Where a paid tool genuinely fits best, we'll say so.
No. We choose tools based on what fits your operation, not what we have a partnership with. Everything we set up uses standard formats so you can export your data and move elsewhere if you ever want to — that's a core part of how NorthGate Collective works.
Thirty minutes, no obligation, no slide deck. You describe what's eating your time; we ask questions; by the end we'll both know whether NorthGate Collective is the right help, or whether you'd be better off with someone else. If we're a fit, we agree the next step. If not, you've still spent half an hour thinking about the problem more clearly.
Don't. The best calls happen when you arrive with the actual mess, not a polished version. If anything, having one or two concrete examples of where admin is currently painful is more useful than any prep doc.
That's fine — book the intro call anyway. We won't push you into a project that isn't ripe. Reclaiming time only works if the timing's right, and figuring that out is part of the conversation.