Innovation in Giving

First round of applications in!

Philip Colligan - 18.10.2011

Last Friday saw the close of the first round of applications for the Innovation in Giving Fund - a £10m fund established by the Office for Civil Society and NESTA - to invest in new ideas with the potential to bring about a significant uplift in giving and exchange of time, assets, skills, resources and money to achieve social goals. 

And when we say "significant uplift", we really mean it.  We're looking for ideas that have the potential to engage hundreds of thousands of new people in social action. 

We think the Fund is the first of its kind in the world, providing a unique opportunity to stimulate and support a new generation of platforms for giving, tapping into the new culture for collaboration, sharing and social action. 

We always knew that there was no shortage of good ideas out there, but the level of interest has been truly phenomenal, with well over 400 applications in the first round alone, and many more people contacting us to say that they are developing ideas for future rounds of the Fund.   

In another first, we asked all applicants to produce a three minute video with their elevator pitch and all of those videos are publicly available. Here is a simple table with the links to all the videos, but we've also put together a dedicated Innovation in Giving Vimeo channel where you can 'like' or comment on any of the elevator pitches. 

The videos are great - some homespun, others more professionally produced - but all providing an authentic and engaging introduction to the very best ideas for innovation in the field.  Huge thanks to all of the applicants.  Whatever the outcome of the selection process, we've created a huge body of knowledge and ideas that is already being looked at across the world.

It's going to be an enormous job reviewing and short listing all of the applications.  Our aim is to start putting recommendations in front of our independent selection panel from November and we'll be making announcements of awards as they happen over the coming weeks and months. 

In the meantime, take some time to look at the videos, make comments, suggest improvements, offer help and generally get involved.  We'll keep you posted through this blog and NESTA's regular newsletter.