How to scale social innovations: forming strategic partnerships

About Nesta

Nesta is a research and innovation foundation. We apply our deep expertise in applied methods to design, test and scale solutions to some of the biggest challenges of our time, working across the innovation lifecycle.

More about us

Too many promising social innovations fail to scale, often stalling at the pilot stage. Successful scaling often requires collaborative networks and partnerships that can support long-term growth and impact.

On Thursday 3 September from 18:00-19:15 BST we’re exploring examples of successful strategic partnerships in social innovation. This hybrid event is part of our ongoing series on scaling innovations and will take place at The Line, 58 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0DS and online.

The event will be chaired by Mallory Durran, applied research and methods director at Nesta, who will be joined by a panel who have successfully navigated this, including:

Moria Sloan, fairer start mission director at Nesta;
Toby Eccles, executive director and co-founder at Social Finance;
Charlotte Thorpe, marketing and behaviour change lead at Library of Things; and
Yasmin Halai-Carter, chief executive officer and co-founder at Ethstat.

Drawing insights from our scaling toolkit, the conversation will unpack the practical realities of constructing partnerships across sectors, consider how organisations can shift from isolated efforts to highly integrated partnerships, explore methods for seamless knowledge transfer and discuss strategies for keeping diverse stakeholders aligned around a singular, mission-driven focus.

Whether you are a social innovator, charity leader, funder or policymaker, you will walk away with ideas and tools to apply to your own scaling efforts.

Moria Sloan

She/Her

Moria heads up the fairer start mission, leading Nesta’s work to tackle early childhood inequalities. She also serves as an advisor at the Cabinet Office, where she previously held the role of deputy director for public sector innovation, supporting the Test, Learn and Grow programme. At Nesta, Moria has held several senior roles, including deputy director for the fairer start mission and chief of staff, where she supported organisational strategy, leadership and equity, diversity and inclusion. Before joining Nesta, Moria worked in the humanitarian sector, supporting people displaced by conflict and crisis around the world. Moria has previously lived in Washington, D.C., Nairobi, Addis Ababa and New York. She loves hiking, camping and spending time outdoors, and is always amused by dogs sitting in puddles.

Toby Eccles

He/Him

Toby is a co-founder of Social Finance and developed the Social Impact Bond model from initial concept to the first implementation at Peterborough Prison. He also led on the first local authority Social Impact Bond – Essex Edge of Care – focused on children in care, and went on to design the Social Outcomes Fund for the Cabinet Office – the first centrally pooled fund for impact bonds. Internationally, Toby catalysed Development Impact Bonds in partnership with the Center for Global Development, and worked with the Inter-American Development Bank on impact bond strategies for Chile, Mexico and Brazil. Toby supported the development of Social Finance’s data and digital capacity whilst also working on several initiatives including a focus on community entrepreneurship, race equity and how government can more effectively manage markets. In 2017 he was given an OBE for services to social investment.

Mallory Durran

She/Her

Mallory has led public sector and start-up teams harnessing data and technology for the public good for over a decade. She brings extensive experience from the heart of UK government, including in No 10 and the Cabinet Office, and most recently as Interim Director of the Incubator for AI at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, leading an engineering team building AI applications for public sector improvement. With an academic background in computational neuroscience, Mallory is a badged statistician and former SCS member of the Government Statistical Service. She has contributed to significant government standard setting and reviews on data and digital infrastructure, ethics, and AI safety and opportunity and led No 10's open API framework development (project rAPId). At Nesta, Mallory oversees the applied research, methods, AI, and technology offer for the group, bringing innovative approaches to improving access to and efficacy of interventions across Nesta’s missions and the wider public sector. She remains relentlessly enthusiastic about the power of data and technology to fuel positive change.

Yasmin Halai-Carter

She/Her

WISE100 Social Businesswoman of the Year 2025 and co-founder of a 2026 King’s Award-winning enterprise, Yasmin Halai-Carter is a leading voice in using the power of sustainable procurement to transform lives, communities and supply chains. As CEO of Ethstat, Yasmin has built a network of more than 500 purpose-led businesses and created a powerful bridge between social enterprises and some of the UK’s largest corporate buyers. By turning everyday business purchasing into a force for good, her work has generated more than £70 million in social impact while creating real Living Wage employment for people affected by homelessness, the justice system and other barriers to work. A second-generation migrant raised in social housing and the first in her family to attend university, Yasmin has spent more than 20 years proving that commercial success and meaningful social impact can, and should, work together. Her experience of supporting her mother through vascular dementia also shaped Ethstat’s commitment to people living with dementia, their carers and families. Through Jamila’s Ethical Coffee, 100% of profits are used to create social impact and provide practical support where it is most needed. Under Yasmin’s leadership, Ethstat received the 2026 King’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development - one of the UK’s highest honours for business.

Charlotte Thorpe

She/Her

Charlotte is Marketing and Behaviour Change Lead at Library of Things, a social enterprise on a mission to make borrowing better than buying. Her work focuses on turning that mission into useful, joyful services and communications that grow impact and support lasting behaviour change. Over the past six years, she has helped Library of Things grow from a single neighbourhood location, into a city-wide network of 23 sharing libraries across London, powered by partnerships with municipalities and community organisations, to build an active community that has now borrowed more than 100,000 times. Before joining Library of Things, Charlotte worked with mission-led organisations including the New Economics Foundation, GoodGym and the Southbank Centre. Her work is rooted in human-centred, behaviour-led communications, helping organisations translate impact and mission-led systems-change ambitions, into practical services and campaigns that people can adopt. She is also a trustee of Circular Communities England, supporting wider systems change across the sharing, repair and reuse movement.

Part of

Scaling projects to achieve social impact

How to scale social innovations: forming strategic partnerships

About Nesta

How to scale social innovations: forming strategic partnerships