Finance for emerging ideas
A wide range of financial tools can be used at these early stages, from small grants to convertible loans, to quasi equity, prizes, direct commissions and tendering. Some of the most useful approaches link money to development.
Grants and support for early ideas
Finance for promising ideas usually takes the form of small grants for social entrepreneurs, or groups of frontline workers, professionals and citizens. Within universities the usual...
Read moreSmall grants
Small grants aimed at community organisations and local groups, usually to shape and demonstrate innovations involving volunteers and community action....
Read moreChallenge funds
Challenge funds within the public sector, like the Singapore Prime Minister’s Enterprise Fund, or the UK Invest to Save Budget. These are open to applications from...
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Funding of networks
Funding of networks and requiring funding recipients to share emerging knowledge as in the European Commission EQUAL programme or the health collaboratives (the latter using structured...
Read moreFunding for incubation
Funding intermediaries to become specialist developers of promising ideas into workable forms, with a capacity to make follow on funding. Incubation includes several elements: scanning for...
Read moreIn-house venturing capacities
In-house venturing capacities, for example located in large NGOs and service organisations. These may be more like ‘skunk works’ or more like corporate venturing units whose...
Read morePaying for time
Paying for time – taking innovative frontline workers out of service roles and putting them into incubators or prestigious time-limited roles to turn ideas into business...
Read moreVouchers
Vouchers to provide purchasing power directly to NGOs or service providers to buy research in universities, or to club together to commission incubators (being tested by...
Read moreCollective voice and credits
Collective voice and credits – allowing staff in an organisation to vote on which ideas and projects should receive early stage funding. This is a useful...
Read moreFunding public private social partnerships
Funding public private social partnerships on particular themes (such as reducing child poverty) and joint ventures – with a mix of grant funding or commissioning, or...
Read moreDirect commissions
For example, a government department contracting for a new school curriculum or healthcare method through a direct contract with a preferred provider, sometimes with staged funding....
Read moreTendering for results
For example, tendering for innovative approaches to cutting graduate unemployment or street homelessness, encouraging bids by teams with the capacity to develop concepts to scale, using...
Read moreCreating new markets through procurement
Creating new markets through procurement. In cases where no established market exists for a particular service or technology, public procurement can create sufficient demand to establish...
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