Ideas Alliance | Social Consultancy

Building bridges between communities and organisations

What we do

We help brave organisations do things differently, bringing people’s voices and lived experiences into policy, service design and decision-making.

Who we are

Ideas Alliance CIC is a social consultancy. We help commissioners, providers and communities work together so that local people shape public services – delivering better outcomes for everyone.

What people say

"Through our work with Ideas Alliance, it has completely changed things. We have different conversations now, we share ownership and have equal power."

"Our organisation has benefited considerably from working alongside the Ideas Alliance. For us it has been good to be able to have the opportunity to take time to reflect and have a critical friend to drive us to do better for those we serve."

"I really felt empowered working with the Ideas Alliance team. They echoed children and young people's voices and experiences in an innovative way."

“Working with the Ideas Alliance has always been rewarding. Supporting my work as a Health and Care Commissioner to introduce Alliance Contracting enabled a positive shift in culture as well as practice to take place and more recently their collaborative, relational approach to supporting power shifting has generated real learning, particularly about the importance and place for values and trust in a public service system.”

"It was a pleasure to work with the Ideas Alliance Team. They provided an honest, friendly and dedicated service to use throughout a complex project with a very tight deadline. Working on a complicated and sensitive area of local government, they were able to offer us with insightful workshops and in-depth fieldwork that allowed to us to better understand service delivery. As a researcher, I fully endorse Ideas Alliance."

"Ideas Alliance worked with us and within our communities to take an appreciative inquiry approach to community research into infant feeding. Their organisational skills, planning, preparation, and professionalism were exemplary. Their work has been a catalyst for embedding community research into all we now do".

Who we work with

We work with a range of people and organisations including local authorities, charities, community members, voluntary groups and national bodies.

Latest News

“The culture of community action is different from the culture of local government”: Collaborating for the future of our places across ontological divides

This piece was written by Dr Jody Aked, an associate of Ideas Alliance, drawing on her work alongside communities and local government across the UK. She reflects on the often unspoken cultural divides between community and local government that shape how collaboration does and does not happen.

Our 2025 moments of joy

We asked a few of the people we’ve been working alongside this year to share their joyful moments from 2025. Not necessarily their major achievements, just some of the positive bits that stayed with them. Reading their stories has reminded us how much good rises out of simple conversations, shared tables, lively workshops and teams who look out for each other.

Building confidence in participation: What we learned from Adur and Worthing’s Participation Labs

Everyone wants to involve people more deeply in shaping decisions that affect them. It’s now widely recognised as the right thing to do. But for many councils and organisations, participation still feels unmanageable. That’s why we created Participation Labs – a practical way for organisations to build the skill and confidence to make participation a normal and embedded part of how they work.