About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

The Democracy Pioneers programme recognised the importance of building and supporting a network of organisations and individuals championing democratic innovation.

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Bringing these organisations together to celebrate their fantastic innovations offered great potential for collaboration.

There is much work to be done to connect and grow a network that supports learning, advocacy and collective opportunities for those working in the democracy sector, and to enable impact to be scaled. We are excited to see further momentum and work taking place already, to help connect up the field and support further collaboration.

A few ways that organisations in this field can get involved

  • Koreo, supported by Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, are mapping democracy actors to better understand the field. We’d encourage more organisations to add themselves to this map.
  • In summer 2020, Joe Mitchell published research on Networking for democracy, which outlined a number of ways to strengthen and support collaboration across the field. Joe is working with a variety of others to build interest and take action on key elements. Contact Joe if you have interest in this or are keen to work on any of these areas.
  • Newspeak House, initially in partnership with Joe Mitchell, Koreo and NPC, will be publishing an online, open source Democracy Handbook early in 2021. This aims to be a be a one-stop shop for all things democracy, including an open library of channels, tools and resources deployed and in use across the sector; a place for best practice examples and FAQs for those within the sector and those around it; act as a space for people within the sector and those with an interest in it to find and share useful resources, tools and contacts; and an archive or hand-off space for ideas, previous initiatives and past ventures. Nesta has provided some seed funding for this work.

The future of everyday democracy

Explore the everyday democracy scenarios

Authors

Carrie Deacon

Carrie Deacon

Carrie Deacon

Director of Government and Community Innovation

Carrie was Director of Government and Community Innovation at Nesta, leading our work on social action and people-powered public services.

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Khyati Modgil

Khyati Modgil

Khyati Modgil

Programme Manager, Government Innovation

Khyati was a Programme Manager in Nesta's Government and Community Innovation team. She is interested in democracy. civic participation and nurturing inclusive organisational cultures.

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Katherine Zscharnagk

Katherine Zscharnagk

Katherine Zscharnagk

Programme Coordinator, A Fairer Start mission

Kat was the Programme Coordinator for the new A Fairer Start mission launched in February 2021.

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Camilla Bertoncin

Camilla Bertoncin

Camilla Bertoncin

Project Manager and Researcher

Camilla was a Project Manager and Researcher working in the Explorations team on the Centre for Collective Intelligence Design.

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Rosalyn Old

Rosalyn Old

Rosalyn Old

Researcher, Government Innovation

Rosalyn was a researcher in Nesta's Government Innovation team.

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Kyle Usher

Kyle Usher

Kyle Usher

Mission Manager (Scotland) - A Sustainable Future

Kyle was Nesta’s Mission Manager for Scotland working on the sustainable future mission and based with the Scotland team in Edinburgh.

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