Evolve names Brawn its strategic technology partner

Today Evolve named Brawn as its strategic technology partner for early-life member engagement and retention. Evolve, formerly Leisure DB, is the UK fitness sector's data and insight partner, providing benchmarking, demographic profiling and market reporting to operators, trusts and public bodies.

The data the sector is missing

Operators can prove footfall. They know who joined and who swiped in. What almost nobody captures is the human outcome: why someone joined, what held them back before, how their confidence changed and whether they progressed.

That gap matters most where funding depends on it. Public-sector trusts and local authorities increasingly make funding and procurement decisions on social value, and commissioners want evidence of outcomes, not turnstile counts. That outcome layer has never existed at scale.

How Brawn captures it

Every new member meets a personal agent in WhatsApp from the moment they sign up. It builds a plan around their goals, their confidence and the times they can train, then checks in at days 14, 30, 60 and 90.

Those conversations capture what operators have never been able to see:

• Why each member joined, and what stopped them before.
• Their confidence on day one, and how it changes.
• Self-reported progress at weeks 4, 8 and 12.
• Who goes quiet, and when.

Member-level data belongs to the operator. Insights are aggregated and never sold.

Why Evolve

On its own, outcome data tells one operator about its own members. Paired with Evolve's demographic benchmarking, it shows how outcomes vary by site, by area and by the people each facility serves. Together, Brawn and Evolve will give operators a combined outcome and social value read, in a format built for councils, trusts and funders.

“Brawn is the missing piece: the ability to collect data to prove the outcome of the person that comes through the door.”

Evolve, partnership announcement

What happens next

Evolve and Brawn are inviting a founding group of 20 operators to run Brawn first and help shape the data set. Places close on Friday 27 November.

Register your interest