An impartial platform for shared priorities

The Impact Economy Collective is a cross-sector alliance of organisations across philanthropy, impact investment and purpose-driven business, coming together to work in partnership with government on the UK's most complex challenges.

Why we exist

A diverse group of people sitting around a table and attentively listening to a presentation in a conference room. The large screen on the wall displays a slide titled "Canvas Section." There is a whiteboard on a stand beside a window with light curtains, and some papers and notebooks are on the table.

The UK's impact economy has grown significantly in scale and sophistication. But it has often operated in a fragmented way — across philanthropy, impact investment and purpose-driven business, and across organisations that rarely come together around a shared challenge.

That fragmentation has cost everyone something. It has made it harder for government to engage with the impact economy as a coherent whole, and harder for the impact economy to translate its intent and resources into delivery at scale.

The Impact Economy Collective exists to change that. We provide a single, trusted place where philanthropy, impact investment, purpose-driven business and government can work together on shared social and environmental priorities.

How we work

The Collective is intentionally practical — builders, not architects. Our work runs through four connected activities:

Focused, time-limited working groups that explore a specific challenge in depth and develop practical, implementable recommendations. Each Lab is designed around a policy question identified together with the relevant government department.

Policy Labs

Each Lab concludes with specific recommendations. Where a recommendation is identified for implementation, we work with the relevant department and partners across the impact economy to turn it into an operational proposition — with named delivery leads and a clear view of the capital or government support required.

Pathways to implementation

We work across departments and across political cycles. The Collective is the principal cross-sector platform working alongside the Office for the Impact Economy in the Cabinet Office, providing independent convening and cross-sector expertise that complements the Office's institutional role.

Partnership with government

Where insights from Labs have wider value, we share them across the impact economy ecosystem — connecting organisations, supporting learning and highlighting opportunities for collaboration.

Field-building

Our Values

Five principles describe how members work together in practice.

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    Public purpose first

    We engage to advance shared social and environmental outcomes, prioritising public value over individual organisational interests.

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    Collaboration over competition

    We work across organisational boundaries and bring our best thinking to shared challenges, even where we compete in other contexts.

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    A trusted and constructive space

    We create a space where organisations and government can work together openly and constructively, connecting policy with expertise, capital and delivery.

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    From evidence to implementation

    We ground our contributions in evidence and delivery experience, focusing on practical solutions and clear pathways to implementation.

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    Open and adaptive learning

    We share insights to strengthen the wider ecosystem, respect confidentiality where needed, and adapt as priorities and opportunities evolve.

How we are governed

The Collective is hosted at the London School of Economics' Marshall Institute and convened by AchieveGood, which acts as its Secretariat. Strategic direction is shaped collectively by members, with an Advisory Board providing oversight, challenge and wider perspective.