ABOUT
Meet the team
Becky Nixon
DIRECTOR
Becky has over 30 years’ experience in the public and voluntary and community sectors as a volunteer, paid worker and trustee including twelve years as a consultant. She set up Ideas to Impact after leaving her role as Deputy Chief Executive at Voluntary Action Leicestershire, one of the largest local infrastructure organisations in the country. Becky has developed, assessed and trained on various quality standards, including the Community Legal Service Quality Mark (now the Advice Quality Standard), Investing in Volunteers, and individual networks' quality standards. She is a trustee of Community Advice and Law Service in Leicester.
Becky is currently undertaking an MSc in psychology. She has an MSc in management and business research, a PG Certificate in coaching (distinction), a CIPD training practice certificate, and a certificate in stress management. Training includes motivational interviewing, facilitation methods, Social Return on Investment, and PRINCE2. She has worked for national, regional and local organisations in sectors including VCS infrastructure, advice services, health and social care, domestic and sexual violence, older people, carers, and housing and homelessness. She is a member of various professional bodies and operates by their codes of guidance.
Becky is particularly interested in working with organisations considering psychological elements of management, organisational development, and service delivery. Current areas of interest include social isolation and loneliness, psychologically- and trauma-informed services, outcomes and behaviour change, and productivity, habits and motivation.
ASSOCIATES
Janet Lewis-Jones
Having spent a brief spell working as a psychologist within the prison service, Janet spent almost two decades working with a national charity in the criminal justice sector, the last ten of those years as National Director of Operations responsible for contracts worth in excess of £12 million, for around 450 paid staff and over 2000 volunteers.
Since becoming freelance in 2004, Janet has worked with a wide range of organisations helping them to improve policy and practice. Janet has worked with a range of quality standards as both an advisor and assessor.
Janet is a Registered Assessor for the matrix Standard which is concerned with the provision of information, advice and guidance. She is also an Assessor and Lead Assessor for the Investing in Volunteers Standard.
Since becoming freelance in 2004, Janet has worked with a wide range of organisations helping them to improve policy and practice. Janet has worked with a range of quality standards as both an advisor and assessor.
Janet is a Registered Assessor for the matrix Standard which is concerned with the provision of information, advice and guidance. She is also an Assessor and Lead Assessor for the Investing in Volunteers Standard.
Ann Gilbert
Ann Gilbert has an MA in Community Education and has worked in the voluntary and community sector for more than 30 years, in senior roles including on the boards of a university, a housing association and a community organisation running a successful children’s nursery and as chief executive of Northampton Volunteering Centre. She has volunteered all her life in formal and informal settings and is currently a parish councillor.
Ann is an enthusiastic, highly motivated, positive ‘people person’ who has spent the majority of her career working with people in a development role. Since 2007 she has run her own consultancy business working with large and small public and voluntary bodies, including local government departments, housing associations, local community groups and large national charities. She has specialised in organisational and strategy development as well as volunteer and staff development, including coaching. Ann has been trained to facilitate exploratory thinking and problem solving alongside people in a variety of settings and has used this experience widely to achieve positive outcomes.
Marlen Tallett
Marlen has over 15 years experience in the art of diary management, business support and development across various industries including television, leisure and tourism, and retail. She is highly organised, adaptable and dependable. Most of all she has a passion for helping and supporting others in order to help them achieve their goals.
Marlen supports the team at Ideas to Impact to help ensure that a high level of service is received by clients and everyone else we work with.
Marlen supports the team at Ideas to Impact to help ensure that a high level of service is received by clients and everyone else we work with.
Krista Blair
Krista Blair has over 20 years’ experience working in capacity building, project development and management, and community research and programme evaluation. In recent years, she has worked as an academic researcher, providing research and evaluation support to UK charities and NGOs working in the areas of labour exploitation, worklessness, and social exclusion. Prior to this, she worked as a third sector manager, using research and evidence to support advocacy and service development. She specialises in participatory approaches to planning, learning, research, and evaluation, and in the evaluation of social interventions.
Her consultancy work has included supporting local partnerships to design programmes tackling social isolation and worklessness; supporting early years charities in organisational development and income generation; developing a programme of learning events for organisations working with people experiencing multiple exclusion; developing evaluation frameworks for capacity-building organisations; and providing organisational assessment and development support to domestic abuse organisations.
Prior to moving to the U.K, she worked in print journalism and for the House of Commons in Canada and provided research and evaluation support to an NGO in Africa. She holds an MA in Social Science Research Methods and an MA in Journalism and Communications.
Her consultancy work has included supporting local partnerships to design programmes tackling social isolation and worklessness; supporting early years charities in organisational development and income generation; developing a programme of learning events for organisations working with people experiencing multiple exclusion; developing evaluation frameworks for capacity-building organisations; and providing organisational assessment and development support to domestic abuse organisations.
Prior to moving to the U.K, she worked in print journalism and for the House of Commons in Canada and provided research and evaluation support to an NGO in Africa. She holds an MA in Social Science Research Methods and an MA in Journalism and Communications.
Sue Harding
Sue Harding is National Quality Assurance Consultant for Investing in Volunteers, Lead Assessor for the Volunteer Centre Quality Accreditation (VCQA) and Assessor for the matrix quality standard in information, advice and guidance. She has provided assessor and verifier training for a range of organisations in the past, including the Health and Safety Executive and national training organisations, and is currently a regional team manager with CIPD.
Sue has recently trained as an assessor for a new Leadership and Management Standard, and is currently completing a Level 5 Certificate in Understanding & Participating in the Assessment Process & Practice (with Matrix).
Dr Sue Newberry
Sue is Managing Director of Good Ideas Ltd. She is a manager and leader with over 30 years’ experience in the voluntary and private sectors. She was CEO of a charity that supported people with disabilities and mental health needs back into employment and has worked as university lecturer in the field of disabilities, IT and Statistics and Research Methodologies.
She has been a consultant and trainer for the last 20 years with particular interest in health, disability, rural communities and the quality of vocational training.
An
experienced Mentor, Assessor and Verifier for Trusted Charity and an Assessor for Investing in Volunteers, she has developed quality assurance standards and been a panel member for various funding bodies.
Sue is a fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and a Certified Member of the Institute of Fundraising. She is an Accredited Practitioner in the use of culture diagnostic and organisational development tools and is currently studying for a Masters in Online and Distance Learning.
CLIENT LIST:
Current and previous clients of Becky Nixon and Ideas to Impact include:
Advice Leicester
Advice UK
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
Bellenden Advice Centre
Centre for Responsible Credit
Citizens Advice
Citizens Advice Derbyshire Districts
Clinks
Commsortia
Community Advice and Law Service
Community Lincs
Derby Community Network
Dial UK
Growing Together
High Peak CVS
Improving Lives
Lambeth CAB
Legal Services Commission
Leicester City Council
NCVO
New Dawn New Day
Nottinghamshire County Council
Nottingham CVS
Nottinghamshire Unemployed
Workers Centre
One East Midlands
Reaching People
Sustainable Harborough
The Limehouse Project
UK Community Foundations
VASL
Vista
Voluntary Action LeicesterShire
Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire
Warwickshire CAVA
Whilton Local History Society
Ideas to Impact Consultancy Ltd is a registered company in England and Wales, number 08584116. Information Commissioner's Office registration ZA513220.