Partnering for Place
Britain is entering a new phase of devolution. A fresh wave of mayoral combined authorities is gaining powers and resources, and mayors are increasingly the leaders closest to the lived realities of communities, from housing and skills to child poverty and public service reform.
At the same time, the UK’s impact economy, spanning philanthropy, social investment and purpose-driven business, stewards over £100 billion in purposeful capital. Much of it is actively looking for meaningful, place-based partnerships with regional leaders.
Our new report, Partnering for Place: How mayoral combined authorities can mobilise philanthropy and the wider impact economy to deliver local priorities, sets out how mayors can bring these two worlds together.
Co-authored by Sam Markey, Dominic Llewellyn and Jack Scriven, and produced as an Impact Economy Collective report with the generous support of The Rigby Foundation, the research draws on evidence from pioneering regions, including Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester, Greater Cambridge, the North East, the West Midlands and the West of England.
The core argument is a shift in mindset: from a spending mindset, which treats public money as a fixed pot to be rationed, to a mobilisation mindset, where public money is used as catalytic capital to unlock private, philanthropic and community resources alongside it.
What makes partnership work
Three ingredients consistently separate sustained partnerships from one-off success: visibility in regional strategies and Growth Plans; capability to broker complex, multi-sector collaborations; and infrastructure, in the form of trusted backbone organisations that hold relationships and institutional memory across political cycles.
The report offers practical recommendations for regional mayors and national policymakers alike, setting out how place-based partnership can move from the exceptional to the routine.
What partnership can deliver
In North Birkenhead, £4.9 million of first-loss capital from the Steve Morgan Foundation enabled a complete redesign of family services — driving a 42% rise in high-ability readers and a 20% reduction in social care re-referrals. Mayor Steve Rotheram committed £5.25 million to scale the model across Liverpool City Region’s most deprived wards.
In Greater Cambridge, £1 million of catalytic capital from the Combined Authority anchored a £6.25 million first close for the Greater Cambridge Impact Fund.
In Liverpool City Region, Kindred has invested £3 million in 55 socially trading organisations, leveraging a further £16.4 million in additional funding and generating £35.9 million in economic and social value.
Sam Markey, Dominic Llewellyn & Jack Scriven
Read the full report to explore our findings and recommendations.
