Qualitative evaluation
Find out what's working, for whom, and why, while there's still time to adjust. We run the qualitative strand of mixed-methods evaluations.
Program evaluationDevelopmental evaluation
The community voice on your team.
Planning firms, evaluators, and agencies bring us in to run the focus groups, co-design sessions, and qualitative evaluation inside their projects.
Women-owned small business
Based in Baltimore
Who's bringing us in?
Your qualitative and engagement subcontractor.
You lead the plan or evaluation. We run the listening inside it and hand back findings that fit your report.
How teaming worksA specialist you can hire directly.
For studies sized for a small firm, we scope, run, and deliver the whole project, often as a fixed-price package.
See the Focus Group Study
Past clients
Gates Foundation
Johns Hopkins
InterAction
Women in Global Health
Member, Design Justice Network
Depth where the numbers stop.
Surveys tell you what is happening. We find out why, from the people living it, and design the way forward with them.
Sectors we serve
City & county governmentHigher educationGlobal healthPhilanthropyHumanitarian & advocacyTechnology
Co-design & community engagement
Workshops where residents, staff, and partners shape the plan with you, including the people who usually go unheard.
Co-design workshopsComprehensive plans
Focus groups & listening sessions
Recruitment, facilitation, and analysis wherever people are: community centers, campuses, workplaces, or online.
Focus groupsIn-depth interviews
Organizational assessment
Staff listening for culture, climate, and reorganization studies.
Ethnography & audience insights
Deep research into the context behind people's choices, across cultures and markets.
Training & capacity building
Listening and research skills for your team or your grantees.
Listening at every scale.
From a global strategy team to an advocacy network, the job is the same: hear from the right people and turn it into something leaders can act on.
Making sense of emerging behaviors across three markets
A global strategy team needed to understand how habits were shifting in very different cultures, and needed answers fast. We joined mid-project as a specialist inside a larger effort and turned a large volume of raw field material into clear, comparable insights.
Leadership called the work pivotal to the project's success.
Alma Major has been extremely helpful in positioning our organization to better mobilize our network of advocates for gender equity in health.
Alma Major has been creative, clever, flexible, and supremely valuable to our re-design process.
Great communication and collaboration, always willing to listen to feedback and make changes that meet business and user needs.
Bring us in before the RFP drops.
Teams come together in the weeks before a deadline. Talk to us early and we'll help shape the engagement or evaluation approach, then deliver it.
- Before the RFP
Intro call
Tell us what you're tracking. We'll say quickly whether the scope is a fit.
- Proposal
We write our part
Approach, bios, past performance, and budget for our scope, ready for your submission.
- Award
In the field fast
We join your kickoff and start recruitment and fieldwork on your schedule.
- Delivery
Findings that fit
Analysis that slots into your report, plus readouts for your client.
The Focus Group Study.
A fixed-scope, fixed-price study for when you need to hear from staff, residents, or an audience and walk away with decisions. Primes can add it to a proposal as a line item.
Essentials
$20K
One audience · about 6 weeks
- Research plan and recruitment
- 4 facilitated focus groups, virtual or in person
- Findings report and leadership readout
Standard Recommended
$35K
Up to two audiences · about 8 weeks
- Everything in Essentials
- 6 to 8 focus groups, compared across audiences
- Action-planning workshop with your team
Expanded
$50K
Multiple audiences · about 10 weeks
- Everything in Standard
- Up to 10 focus groups, plus follow-up interviews or a short survey
- Board-ready summary and 60-day check-in
Recruitment incentives, translation, and travel are billed at cost. Need something in between? We'll scope it with you.
Capability statement
The details proposal teams ask for, also available as a one-page PDF to drop into your proposal file.
- Company
- Alma Major, a women-owned small business founded and run by Meg Kemp
- Location
- Baltimore, Maryland. Working across the Baltimore–DC region, nationally, and internationally
- NAICS codes
- 541720 social science research · 541611 management consulting · 541910 market research
- Rates
- Fixed-price packages, or hourly and daily rates quoted per proposal
Maryland Small Business Reserve and MBE certifications in progress.
Inclusive by default.
Standard research toolkits often skip over the root causes of inequity: poverty, racism, ableism, sexism. We name issues of power early, so the solution works for everyone it's meant to serve.
ReciprocityInclusivityShared ownershipDemocracyFeminismHumility
We don't take on work that supports policing, weapons, disinformation, or human rights violations.
Meg Kemp, founder
Meg founded Alma Major to help distribute creative power more fairly. She brings a background in behavioral science and qualitative research, with training from Temple University and Johns Hopkins, and experience across enterprise strategy, humanitarian technology, global health, and advocacy.
Alma Major works as a flexible studio, pulling in trusted collaborators to match each project, whether we lead or join a larger team.
Building a team for an RFP?
Send the solicitation or a line about the scope. We'll reply with whether it fits and what we'd add. Agencies and funders hiring directly are welcome too.
Email Meg
meg@almamajor.com