Charities have been recognised for innovating their way out of the ‘giving decline’, as nine step-changing ideas are awarded funding from the Innovation in Giving Fund; run by Nesta, the UK'’s innovation foundation, and funded by the Cabinet Office.  

The announcement comes as the £10m fund marks its first anniversary and 67 projects have been supported by the fund in that time.

Family volunteering days, a safe online sponsorship platform for children and applying social psychology insights to mobile giving are just some of the ways these established charities are looking to combat the challenges currently facing the sector.

The 10 charities behind the nine projects - which include Mencap, Keep Britain Tidy and Marie Curie Cancer Care - are challenging traditional fundraising, resource exchange and volunteering models to engage more people in the giving of time, skills, money and resources. The projects have been selected from a shortlist of 23 applications, which have all received support to develop their ideas since July.

Each of the nine concepts selected for funding from the shortlist are adapting and adopting existing giving innovations and have demonstrated the most potential for impact and scale; both for the individual organisations and with scope for the rest of the sector.

The selected projects are:

  • Age UK: a sharing platform that raises donations while reducing isolation in old age.
  • The Children's Society: real-time updates and transparency for supporters on the difference their donation is making to a local project.
  • FoodCycle: testing new ways to grow volunteer hub networks, building on models such as the growth strategy behind the Mexican food chain, Chipotle Mexican Grill.
  • Keep Britain Tidy: making it easier to share time, skills, resources, money and take action in your local community and at a national scale through the 'Love Where You Live Sharing Network'.
  • Marie Curie Cancer Care: developing a loyalty-based gaming platform, with free and paid-for games.
  • Mencap: developing 'Kids for Good' - a fun, easy and safe way for children to raise sponsorship from friends and family online.
  • National Trust: launching a family volunteering day, The Big Family Day Off, bringing together employee volunteering and family days out.
  • United Response: tapping into the cultural norm of gifting at celebration events to grow the giving of time and money through developing the 'Give Where You Live' platform where friends and family of the charity's beneficiaries to donate to their local service.
  • WWF and Scope: together, these two charities will apply social psychology insights to mobile giving and create a toolkit for charity fundraisers.

The concepts have all been developed with practical support from Nesta to overcome big challenges facing the charitable sector - ranging from engaging new audiences in giving to retaining and growing supporters' networks. In response, the charities have been developing these new and powerful ways to maximise donations, aiming to get more people involved in giving their time or unlocking idle and under-used resources and assets for social goals.

The nine projects are among 67 game-changing ideas that the Innovation in Giving Fund has supported in its first year.  Four3 of the charity projects are working in partnership with other awardees of the fund to help develop and deliver the ideas. For example, FoodCycle and The Children's Society are partnering with The Giving Lab, while Age UK is work with the online sharing platform, Ecomodo.

Geoff Mulgan, chief executive of Nesta explains, "We know that the best innovations often adapt ideas from one field to another, and over the years charities have constantly adapted ideas like direct mail or direct debit from other fields. Now support from this programme will help a group of world class charities to draw on innovations elsewhere in civil society and in other sectors to boost giving.  The results look set to be very exciting - a fast track to scale and impact."

Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd said, "This fund is about supporting creative new ideas that will inspire more people to give time or money. I have been very impressed by the quality of the 67 charity projects that we have supported through this fund in its first year. It has been very rewarding for the charities to get their projects off the ground and we have been delighted to see some great ideas fly."

At an event this evening (10 December) celebrating the first anniversary of the fund, the Minister will announce 2013 plans for the Innovation in Giving programme, which will see a focus on supporting local volunteering hubs, business giving and impact volunteering.  

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Notes to editor:

  • 1CAF's 2012 UK Giving report found that giving fell by 20% between 2010/2011 and 2011/2012
  • 2The Innovation in Giving Fund was launched in September 2011. The Fund is one of a number of new policies announced in the Giving Whitepaper in May 2011. The charities have been awarded as part of the Open Innovation Programme, a strand of the Innovation in Giving Fund, which helps charities take innovative approaches in giving to scale. The programme focuses on opportunities for charities to collaborate with existing innovators within and outside of the sector to grow externally sourced ideas within their own organisations.
  • 3Age UK and Ecomodo; FoodCycle and The Giving Lab; The Children's Society and The Giving Lab; United Response and timto
  • On Tuesday Nesta, in partnership with Volunteering England, will launch an open call to the nation's 270 volunteer centres for innovative ideas to encourage more volunteering with greater impact

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.