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How to scale social innovations: influencing and advocacy

2 Jul 2026 18:00 – 19:15

The Line, 58 Victoria Embankment EC4Y 0DS and online

Free

Achieving social impact at scale is not an easy feat. Many great ideas languish at the pilot stage or stall after initial enthusiasm because they are unable to influence the right people in the right way.

Join us on Thursday 2 July 18:00-19:15 BST at The Line, 58 Victoria Embankment, London, to discover what it takes to influence people who can make or break wide-scale adoption of an innovative idea.

Nesta’s director of policy and partnerships, Joe Owen, will chair a panel of experts who have used influencing to deliver results. The panel includes Lord Simon Woolley, founder of Operation Black Vote, Charlotte Osborn-Forde, chief executive at the National Academy for Social Prescribing and Lauren Bowes Byatt, director of Nesta’s healthy life mission.

Together, they will share lessons learned from their own scaling journeys, drawing on experiences of campaigning and advocacy, as well as more inside-track policymaker engagement. They will also share how advising and training others can help grow an idea even further.

This hybrid event is the second instalment of Nesta’s new series, How to scale social innovations, which explores how impactful ideas move beyond pilots to achieve real-world scale, drawing from insights in Nesta’s scaling toolbox, designed to provide practical tools and frameworks for scaling impact.

This event is for social innovators, charity leaders, policymakers and funders looking for proven methods to scale impact-driven solutions. Register today to secure your place, receive the event link, reminders and updates straight to your inbox.

Joe Owen

He/Him

Joe is Director of Policy and Government Partnerships at Nesta. Joe was a senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office, where he worked on a wide range of economic and domestic policy issues including climate, regional inequality and migration. He also worked at the Institute for Government, as both Director of Impact and the director of the Institute's Brexit programme. He is a senior fellow at the Institute. Joe has also worked with a number of government departments as a consultant, including the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and he spent a year at Transport for London in its strategy team.

Lord Simon Woolley

He/Him

Simon Woolley became Principal of Homerton College on 1 October 2021. He founded Operation Black Vote, the internationally renowned campaigning NGO, in 1996 and served as its Director until 2021. OBV works with ethnic minorities in the UK to increase understanding of civic society, participation in Parliament and public life, and to promote equality and human rights. He served as an Equality and Human Rights Commissioner from 2009 to 2012, and in 2018 he was appointed by Prime Minister Theresa May to create and lead the UK Government’s pioneering Race Disparity Unit. The Unit collects, analyses and publishes data on how crime, education and health are affected by ethnicity. Fostered and then adopted as a small child, Lord Woolley grew up on a council estate in Leicester, and left school without A-levels, working first as an apprentice mechanic and then in marketing for the Rank Organisation. He later returned to formal study via an access course and gained a BA in Spanish and English Literature at Middlesex University and an MA in Hispanic Studies at Queen Mary University of London. He is passionate about educational access and the importance of recognising and supporting marginalised potential. Lord Woolley has a track record of addressing representational imbalances, transforming institutions, and nurturing individuals. His cross-party and cross-sector work with Operation Black Vote has seen the number of MPs from black and minority ethnic backgrounds rise from 4 to 65 over the past two decades. In collaboration with Magdalen College, Oxford, he has been instrumental in the development of Pathway to Success, a programme designed to equip future BME leaders with the tools and knowledge required for senior leadership. Repeatedly recognised in the Black Powerlist, Lord Woolley is dedicated to promoting opportunity for underrepresented communities and individuals, and to building consensus across political and community lines. Simon Woolley was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2019 and was created a life peer in December of the same year. He sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Westminster in 2012, and the University of Leicester in 2023, and is an Honorary Fellow of Harris Manchester College and Magdalen College in the University of Oxford. He is a regular contributor to newspapers nationally and internationally on topics relating to equality, diversity and social justice.

Lauren Bowes Byatt

She/Her

Lauren is a director of the healthy life mission. Her team is focused on working across public, private and non-profit sectors to deliver innovative solutions that tackle obesity and loneliness in the UK. Lauren joined Nesta from the Cabinet Office, where she worked as head of planning and coordination in the COVID-19 task force. She was responsible for supporting Number 10 decision-making on COVID-19 and organising key COVID-19 policy moments, from implementing national lockdowns to delivering the government's Spring Summer and Autumn Winter roadmaps. During this time, she was also deployed to NHS England's COVID-19 vaccination programme where she helped on delivery of the 'Get Boosted Now' campaign. Prior to this, Lauren held strategy roles within the Home Office and Cabinet Office. At the Cabinet Office, she oversaw the creation and delivery of the government's loneliness strategy. Lauren joined the Civil Service as a social researcher after working as an analyst in the private sector in both market research and publishing industries. Outside of work Lauren enjoys yoga, visiting art galleries and eating out. She is also a trustee for the charity Hestia.

Charlotte Osborn-Forde

She/Her

Charlotte is CEO of the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP), a charity working to advance social prescribing through development of innovation, best practice, evidence, new investment models and better awareness. She oversees NASP’s wide and diverse partnerships across the arts, physical activity, heritage, the natural environment and community services. Charlotte champions social prescribing around the world, working with leaders in 40 countries, as NASP is the WHO Collaborating Centre for Social Prescribing Policy and Development. Charlotte has worked in the charity sector for 20 years, directly with disadvantaged communities and closely with the NHS and wider public services to design and evaluate innovative cross sector approaches.

2 Jul 2026 18:00 – 19:15

Free

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How to scale social innovations: influencing and advocacy

About Nesta

How to scale social innovations: influencing and advocacy