What We Did In 2025 and 2026, NB Social Justice Studio worked with the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht to support
NB Social Justice Studio partnered with the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) to conduct an external evaluation of its Equality & Intercultural Programme. The work was framed as a collaborative evaluation process, designed to generate clear insights, accessible analysis and practical next steps that reflect the realities of contemporary youth work in Ireland.
In 2024–2025, Community Foundation Ireland asked NB Social Justice Studio to take an honest look at what “democracy protection” really means in Ireland. Through confidential conversations with civil society, funders and field experts, and an analysis of Irish and international practice, we mapped where philanthropic money can genuinely strengthen democratic life – and where it can unintentionally reinforce existing power imbalances. The result was a practical Ten Levers for Democratic Protection framework and clear strategic pathways that now guide more intentional, values‑led funding decisions.
In 2018, Ireland voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment and legalise abortion after one of the largest feminist and civil‑society campaigns in its history. Together for Yes united more than 100 organisations in a national, values‑driven coalition for reproductive rights, blending grassroots organising, strategic communications and feminist leadership. In the months after the referendum, the campaign’s Co‑Directors commissioned an independent learning review – not as a victory lap, but to honestly document what worked, what was hard, and what future movements could do differently. NB Social Justice Studio’s precursor, Michael Barron Social Change Consultancy, was asked to lead that work.
At The Rowan Trust, we built rapid-response and cultural-activism funds with INAR, Dublin Pride, NYCI and Create, designing small, flexible grants that moved quickly to anti‑racist, youth and queer organisers, while sitting alongside wider core funding to Ireland’s social‑change NGOs.
