Social action challenges set to increase giving of time, skills and resource

10/7/12

Nesta’s Centre for Challenge Prizes has today launched two ‘Giving Challenges’ to tackle isolation in old age and waste reduction. The challenges invite people to submit ideas on how to bring people together in new ways to combat these pressing environmental and social concerns.

The Giving Challenges have been set to encourage community innovation in the giving of time, skills and resources for social good. They are funded by The Cabinet Office and will see one idea from each of the challenges awarded £50,000.

The challenges:

• Age Well: Isolation and loneliness in old age is a growing concern. This challenge tasks organisations and groups to develop ideas to reduce the isolation and / or increase the mobility of vulnerable older people by creating new opportunities for people to give time, skills and resources.
• Waste Reduction: The UK is only at the tip of the landfill when it comes to waste and more needs to be done to tackle the issue at every level. Organisations and groups are being asked to submit ideas to reduce waste through prevention, reuse and / or recycling by creating new opportunities for people to give time, skills and resources.

Both challenges are searching for solutions that have the potential for scale and sustainability, while also creating new opportunities to engage the community in their delivery.

Vicki Purewal, head of Centre for Challenge Prizes at Nesta, explains, "The Giving Challenges have been set to motivate people to consider two prominent and growing social conundrums facing communities. Through the challenge prizes we want to encourage the development of new ways to make use of community-level giving to have a big impact on the pressing social concerns of isolation of older people and waste reduction."

Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd said, "We want to make it easier and more compelling for people to get involved in their communities. That's why we set up challenge prizes to give organisations an exciting opportunity to come with ideas to solve social issues such as tackling isolation in older people or helping reduce waste in our communities. We want to hear about ideas that make a difference but also mobilise people to get involved.

"These new projects will complement the Innovation in Giving Fund and the Social Action Fund, already set up to encourage giving."

For each challenge, 25 entries will be shortlisted and given the support and opportunity to develop a detailed plan for their idea. Five concepts for each, with the potential for sustainability and scale, will then receive up to £10,000 and professional advice to set up and test their projects before a winner for each challenge is selected in September 2013 and awarded £50,000.

The challenge is open to not-for-profit, private and public sector organisations, as well as non-constituted groups and partnerships who are coming together for the first time to develop their ideas. Entry is via online application at www.nesta.org.uk/givingchallenges and the deadline is noon 14 September 2012.

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Notes to editor

For further information please contact Sarah Reardon on 020 7438 2606 / sarah.reardon@nesta.org.uk or Guy Bilgorri on 020 7438 2611 / guy.bilgorri@nesta.org.uk

About Challenge Prizes

Challenge prizes, also called 'inducement' prizes, offer a reward to whoever can first, or most effectively, meet a defined challenge. They act as an incentive for meeting a specific challenge, rather than an award for past achievements.

Famous examples of challenge prizes include the Ansari X-Prize for manned private spaceflight, the 18th century Longitude Prize to help British navigators, or the 20th century Schneider Trophy for aviation, which inspired the Spitfire.

Offering cash prizes to incentivise breakthrough innovations is a time-honoured practice. Today, the practice of using prizes to stimulate innovation is back. As collaborative and open innovation grows in importance, and as web platforms enable crowdsourcing and collaboration on a massive scale, we are witnessing a revolution in the importance of challenge prizes for innovation. Experiments in spurring innovation with prizes are now taking place around the world, by governments, corporations and charities - tackling both technical and social challenges.

The Centre for Challenge Prizes was launched to bring together the growing expertise and interest in challenge prizes and to help build understanding of how challenge prizes can play an effective and strategic role in the stimulation and support of innovation.

About Nesta

Nesta is the UK's innovation foundation. We help people and organisations bring great ideas to life. We do this by providing investments and grants and mobilising research, networks and skills.

We are an independent charity and our work is enabled by an endowment from the National Lottery.

Nesta Operating Company is a registered charity in England and Wales with a company number 7706036 and charity number 1144091. Registered as a charity in Scotland number SC042833. Registered office: 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE

www.nesta.org.uk