Alliance for Learning InnovationEducation & Youth · Website Design & Digital Partnership

From spin-off to standard-bearer: a digital home for education R&D

When ALI became an independent organization, we built its website. Then we kept building: an interactive policy playbook, a distinct advocacy brand, and a design system that keeps growing with the coalition.

Services

Website Design & DevelopmentResource LibraryInteractive Data VisualizationsMicrositesLogo & Brand ExtensionGraphic DesignOngoing Support

Launch

2025 · partnership ongoing

Key deliverables

Custom main site with searchable resource library and interactive funding-analysis charts · State Ed R&D Policy Playbook microsite · ALI Action 501(c)(4) site with distinct derivative brand

About ALI: The Alliance for Learning Innovation (ALI) is a bipartisan coalition bringing together school leaders, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to build a robust education research and development ecosystem, developing, implementing, and scaling evidence-based solutions that improve outcomes for students.

Alliance for Learning Innovation website design by Elevation

Alliance for Learning Innovation website interior page design

Alliance for Learning Innovation website section design

The story

The Challenge

Fresh funding let ALI spin off from its fiscal sponsor into an independent organization, but its website undermined the moment. Text-heavy and template-bound, it read like a placeholder to the exact audiences ALI must persuade: researchers and federal policymakers. Navigation was cluttered, the design outdated, the site hard to update independently, and published materials (the coalition’s currency) were inefficient to access. ALI needed a credible digital home, and it needed to control it.

Our Approach

We built the main site around ALI’s publications: a searchable resource library with directory management, a comments tool so education researchers can engage with the work, and interactive funding-analysis charts the ALI team can update themselves, plus six mobile-responsive templates, migrated content, SEO tooling, and extended editor training for full independence. Then the partnership compounded. When ALI co-published a major state education R&D whitepaper, we transformed it into the interactive State Ed R&D Policy Playbook: role-based pathways for teachers, advocates, and state and district leaders, delivered ahead of a November event deadline. When ALI launched its 501(c)(4) advocacy arm, ALI Action, we created a deliberately distinct site and logo: derivative of the ALI brand but clearly separate, respecting the line between programmatic and advocacy work.

Why It Worked

Coalitions are judged by their evidence. Designing ALI’s site as a research library first, then reusing that design system for each new initiative, meant every launch since has been faster, cheaper, and unmistakably ALI.

The Results

On schedule

A credible, self-managed digital presence for ALI’s independence, delivered on schedule and on budget, with zero downtime in migration

Living library

Publications transformed from buried PDFs into a searchable, discussable library with living data visualizations

Playbook

A whitepaper turned into a usable, role-based playbook in time for its launch moment

Two brands

A legally sound, visually distinct advocacy brand — and a client that keeps coming back

Alliance for Learning Innovation website spread designed by Elevation

Alliance for Learning Innovation website detail design

A partnership that keeps compounding.

What began as one website became a digital partnership: a policy playbook built on the same design system, a deliberately distinct brand for ALI Action’s advocacy work, and graphic design and ongoing support plans that keep both brands moving.