We believe in the potential of governments to support everyone to thrive
But we have found that government systems, structures, and processes are often not set up to respond to the complex challenges we face as a society.
We work alongside governments, public servants, civil society and communities, offering support and guidance to help realise our vision to make government work better for people everywhere.
What we do
As a charity, our team in Europe helps those working in and around government by acting as a learning partner, supporting them to centre all their work in learning and experimentation.
We co-create every partnership based on the unique organisational context and community we’re working with. There are many ways we work with partners. Some of the main ways we support them are:
We push the boundaries of our current understanding, exploring new topics critical to the future of government. We share what we’re learning and tell the stories of the people spearheading change in governments worldwide.
We work alongside governments to help them build the mindsets, capabilities, tools and frameworks to lead in complexity. We support them in transforming structures and cultures to orient them towards learning and experimentation.
We convene public servants to connect, share knowledge, and accelerate learning in response to complex challenges.
We work with partners to design and deliver global philanthropic impact challenges to support systems and communities to deliver better outcomes through the transformative power of technology.
What we're learning
governments and organisations
public servants and changemakers
community members
In 2021-22, we worked with a range of partners on topics including innovation, digital transformation, and strengthening community relationships.
In the true spirit of a learning partner, we're continually learning about how to support change in government. So, we've gathered key insights from our work about what governments can do to shape public services that work better for everyone:
Work alongside communities to build better public services that meet people’s needs.
Think of their role as a convener and a steward, to unlock partnerships able to tackle complex challenges.
Be proactive in building learning environments and lead by example.
Re-frame approaches to innovation and impact, in order to create meaningful change.
Our work
Urban Imaginaries is a 10-month learning journey supporting cities across Eastern Europe and Central Asia to develop solutions to their most pressing urban challenges, co-designed and delivered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), thanks to the support of the European Union.
Working with cities to lead the charge towards a net zero resilient future.
.png)
Partnering with Google.org to build a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient Europe through the Tech for Social Good Impact Challenge.
Supporting Greater Manchester and regulatory and inspection partners to design more collaborative ways of working together to improve public services for those who experience multiple disadvantage.
Helping places and organisations apply a Human Learning Systems approach to planning and delivering public services.
Partnering with the Live Longer Better (LLB) network to enable Active Partnerships to learn collectively and encourage active ageing.
Working with the London Borough of Redbridge to help their community hubs thrive by supporting them to establish the systems, processes, and culture to learn as they work.
Helping local authorities in England to rethink children’s social care and design new approaches to enable social workers to do their best work.
Supporting Bloomberg Philanthropies in designing and implementing the European Digital Cities initiative. This 18-month programme helped 19 European capital cities accelerate digital innovation, providing them with the tools and capabilities to design citizen-centred services that deliver better results for residents.
Who we work with
We’ve worked with public sector organisations, government, academic institutions, charities and foundations across Europe to explore how we can make government more effective and trusted to work for everyone.
Testimonials
"We greatly enjoyed working alongside the CPI team. With their rigour and warmth, we successfully co-created a human-centered design learning journey called Urban Imaginaries for city teams in Armenia, Georgia and Moldova (under the EU funded Mayors for Economic Growth). All city teams saw their grant design and implementation improved and positive effects and scalability of the learning, including securing additional funding. Change in local bureaucracies is no quick fix and ultimately depends on the human tissue of trust and safe spaces to experiment and learn. People change systems, the CPI team understood that and showed much adaptability and relevance to that end."
"CPI worked with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch) to understand effective ways to engage the public on meaningful behaviour change that can aid in achieving net-zero emissions goals. CPI was able to activate its network and deep knowledge to interpret our brief and deliver a sophisticated output that resonated with policy-makers and practitioners."
"CPI has been invaluable to Frontline and has filled our skill gaps patiently and expertly through a partnership of equality where Frontline can bring its subject matter expertise and its networks, with CPI contributing expert project management, government relations abilities and policy excellence. Without CPI we would not have advanced our “Blueprint for Children's Social Care” to a live test and learn site."
"Working with CPI was a great experience. They brought rigour, creativity and challenge to our work together, taking our initial brief and developing it flexibly with us, in response to what we were learning as we went along. Their work was instrumental in helping us develop and refine our programmatic theory of change, which identified our core purpose, and the means by which we could achieve that purpose – in our case, to build trusting relationships, through effective and structured collaboration."
We are an experienced international team of former civil servants, researchers, and communicators who are passionate about reimagining government.
Insights from our work
Get in touch
Are you ready to reimagine government with us? Then, get in touch and let’s talk about how we can work together.
Centre for Public Impact UK is a charitable company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales, company number 12436197, charity number 1193597. Our registered office is 30 Stamford Street, 4th Floor, Alto Building, SE1 9LQ, United Kingdom. You can find more information on CPI's overall governance structure here.
.png)