News

A new philanthropic partnership funding good ideas.

Funding ideas to improve children’s health and wellbeing

At the end of last year, we began working with a UK philanthropist who, having led a successful career in business, recognised the value in funding research and development. They wanted to fund the good ideas that need some investment to test but could ultimately be scaled or rolled out more widely. They sought to partner with us at Inspiring Scotland to find those good ideas from Scotland’s voluntary sector and help make a reality.

David Graham, founder of Changing Ideas said:

“As our name suggests we want to support ideas that can make a difference. Working with the team at Inspiring Scotland makes this a reality and hopefully brings about long term positive change where it matters.”

Celia Tennant Inspiring Scotland Chief Executive:

“It is really exciting to create the opportunity for ideas to move into action through this partnership.  With 17 years funding, supporting and partnering with the voluntary sector in Scotland, we know there is not a shortage of good ideas. With time and investment many of these ideas could bring validation and evidence that a new approach could work.  We are grateful for the opportunity to make this work happen.”

Together as partners we identified that investment targeted towards improving children’s health and wellbeing could be channelled effectively to not only test an idea but help children and young people directly.

With a current portfolio of over 350 funded charities and partners, we initially sought the ideas from this pool.

Five ideas have been selected so far with the intention to do more. These first ideas include:

• Cross Reach Community Connections: Develop a digital product to support parents and young people understand and address challenges with mental health.
• East Lothian Play Association: Testing a Loose Play Parts Enterprise Model in two schools.
• Lucy Faithful Foundation: Develop trauma informed resources to support the families of perpetrators of childhood abuse.
• Winning Scotland: To explore and test Intelligent tutoring systems and implement some tests of change.
• Women’s Aid South Lanarkshire and East Renfrewshire: Deliver a programme for boys aged 11-16 years which supports understanding of gender-based violence and self-care.

This funding is built around mutual trust. We trust the people with the ideas and have already done the diligence on the organisation to know they are experts in their areas. We look forward to learning about the impact of the funding and the potential of each idea beyond the initial test.

This is not currently an open funding round, we will communicate further funding announcements through our social media channels and newsletter.

Changing Ideas is a charity founded by philanthropist David Graham to achieve lasting social change and improve the lives of the most vulnerable within society.