Tech For Good Hub

Comic Relief's Tech for Good programme for charities and social enterprises etc

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How and why we changed our Tech for Good initiative in 2020

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The Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation Tech for Good fund has been running since 2016. It has supported non-profits to take a significant digital step forward by funding them to develop digital solutions that make their work or services more effective, and providing access to digital experts.

A core ethos of the Tech for Good fund has always been encouraging organisations to keep their users’ needs at the heart of development. As funders, we are mindful that our users are the non-profits engaging with us, applying to our programmes, and accessing our funding.

That’s why, in 2019, we reviewed the fund with the help of Think Social Tech to make sure it was still fit for those it served. One of the main findings of our review was that organisations needed early stage support, through ring-fenced time and funding, to enable them to focus their energy on thinking about the direction and potential of digital development in their context, before embarking upon full scale development.

While this need was identified by our review, which came before COVID-19 emerged, it’s clear that organisations are now facing more pressure than ever to adopt digital practices – this is being well documented by Catalyst, a charitable network which helps the voluntary sector strengthen its digital capabilities. Through their granular and on-the-ground work with organisations, Catalyst has identified a range of areas that organisations are currently dealing with. One of the biggest mid-to-long term challenges outlined is the way organisations are dealing with the impact on services. Issues include the surge in demand alongside adjusting to rapidly shifting modes of service delivery, understanding the medium-term evolving needs of service users, and how to effectively safeguard them.

We were due to launch a new strand of our funding, ‘Explore’, in summer 2020, offering short, early stage scoping funding and support to organisations. We have worked with CAST to slightly adapt this offer to the current circumstances. However, we think the same broad principles still apply. We want teams to access the right conditions for meaningful digital development; this is even more crucial for charities thinking about the challenges outlined above, and the implications for mid-to-long term service delivery as the consequences of COVID-19 become clearer.

The Tech for Good ‘Explore’ programme, delivered by CAST, and co-funded by Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, will support 40-50 organisations to undertake early stage digital scoping:

  • It will guide organisations through a three-month structured design programme supporting teams to gain experience and understanding of user-led, test-driven approaches, and enable them to develop a prototype to test with their service users
  • It will also offer £5,000 grants for single organisations and £7,500 for collaborations to backfill staff time and operational cost. This was designed to make digital service development conceivable and feasible for organisations, ensuring their use of digital was best suited to their contexts.

‘Explore’ support forms part of a wider digital journey for organisations, and has been designed with this in mind. We hope that this early stage support will not only help organisations to respond to the current need for digital solutions, but play a role in the longer term digital transformation of the sector within and beyond our own funding programmes.

You can find out more about the ‘Explore’ programme and apply here.

Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation announce ‘Explore’, a new early stage digital funding strand, in partnership with CAST

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Tailored support to help charities accelerate the development of digital solutions

Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation are pleased to announce that they are adding a new early stage strand, Explore, to their Tech for Good funding initiative.

The Tech for Good programme was developed in response to the emerging need for charities to use technology to explore different approaches to delivering better services. The Explore programme will help charities to scope a digital solution to improve outcomes for the people they support, and to build the skills to develop a strong, user-led approach to digital service delivery.

Funded by Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the programme will be delivered by digital service design support partner CAST.

The £230,000 Explore programme will allow charities to engage in a 12-week learning journey to scope out the kinds of digital services they might provide and to explore how digital technology could transform the ways they work. The programme includes grants of £5,000 for individual organisations, or £7,500 for collaborations.

It will offer organisations the chance to:

  • Identify the user need they are trying to address
  • Examine whether a digital solution is the best idea
  • Identify the key implications of implementing a new solution
  • Design a prototype which can be tested and made ready for further development
  • Look at how it might be possible to obtain funding for further work.

The application process is open to UK charities and not-for-profit organisations with incomes of between £75,000 and £10 million, and applications should address one of the following core issue areas – A Safe Place To Be, Fighting For Gender Justice, Children Survive and Thrive, and Global Mental Health Matters. More information on these themes is available here.  Applications addressing challenges related to disability outside of the themes specified above are also welcome, acknowledging the critical potential of digital technology in tackling this issue.

40 to 50 grants are expected to be awarded. Applications open on 20th May, and close on 22nd June 2020. Applicants should visit the CAST website for full details and a link to the application form.

Organisations will receive a flexible and tailored package of support, including access to an online curriculum, one-to-one support calls, and virtual community meet-ups.

The new strand of funding follows a period of learning, listening and reflection by Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation after co-funding the fourth round of Tech for Good in 2019.

It also draws on CAST’s experience of providing support to charities in the development of digital services, including on the Tech for Good initiative. In light of COVID-19, this fund is especially relevant now as organisations seek to respond to a new context.

The Explore programme forms part of a wider digital journey. In advance of the programme, applicants should be able to identify key service redesign needs and challenges. Applicants are welcome to participate in CAST’s free Design Hop course, which will help identify these needs.

The initiative also aims to put organisations in a better position to apply for further social tech funding, for example to the wider Tech for Good fund, which the funders plan to launch in late 2020.

Moira Sinclair, Chief Executive, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, said:

“Tech for Good was developed to support charities to deliver better services for their communities through technology. We could hardly have known at the time just how transformational an acceleration was around the corner and how much more relevant this programme would feel as a result.  We hope the introduction of our new Explore strand will give charities the space and support they need to transition to digital service delivery, bridging the digital divide and continuing to connect to the people and communities that need them most.”

Ruth Davison, Chief Executive, Comic Relief, said:

“Our Tech for Good initiative, co-funded with Paul Hamlyn Foundation since 2017, is continuously evolving to ensure it meets the needs of organisations and the people they support. We’re excited to announce Explore, our new funding strand, which will give organisations the crucial time and head-space to scope how a digital approach can be best utilised in their service delivery, a need exacerbated by the current context. We are also excited to be working with CAST and Catalyst to deliver Explore, complementing the work being carried out by them and tapping into their excellent networks of practice to support sustainable and meaningful change.”

Dan Sutch, Director, CAST, said:

“It’s fantastic to be able to work with Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation on this new programme. Now, more than ever, it’s vital that charities have access to the advice and support needed to develop high quality digital services. We look forward to directly working with charities as part of Explore and connecting them to the wider Catalyst network of support.”

The eight organisations funded by Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Tech for Good 2019 programme

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The 2019 round is the third time that the funders have joined forces to fund tech-based initiatives that have the power to accelerate positive social change.

The Tech for Good programme was developed in response to the emerging need for charities to use technology to explore different approaches to delivering better services that help people, organisations and communities. As part of the programme, funded partners are offered a monetary award alongside access to support from experts and advisors, as well as the opportunity to collaborate and share learning with other teams.

The organisations are receiving grants of up to £51,500 for each project, giving them the chance to explore new approaches that seek to improve people’s lives.

An intensive package of non-monetary support is also provided, recognising that digital development is an area that relies on skills and expertise as well as funding for opportunities to be realised. This is designed to enable organisations to learn, develop their digital capacities in a new way and strengthen their work by developing viable and sustainable digital products.

Kicking off in August 2019, the projects will last for nine months until May 2020. Each includes a two-month soft development phase, an intense four-month hard development phase, followed by a three-month launch phase.

The digital support agency for this cohort were appointed following a competitive tender process. A consortium application from CAST, Snook, Founders and Coders, and Doteveryone were selected to undertake this work; the consortium provides digital mentoring support, advice as well as mutual learning opportunities for the cohort of organisations funded through the initiative.

Moira Sinclair, Chief Executive of Paul Hamlyn Foundation commented:
“The latest round of grants continues to demonstrate the power of tech to find new ways to address disadvantage. We look forward to seeing how these ideas evolve with access to tailored tech support and valued partnerships backing people to pursue their vision for social change.”

Comic Relief’s CEO Liz Warner added: “We’re pleased to be supporting another Tech for Good cohort, responding to a diversity of social issues, and helping them put the needs of the people they serve at the heart of their digital development.”

The successful Tech for Good 2019 projects are:

Alexandra Rose
Rose Vouchers for Fruit and Veg Programme (RVP) supports families on low incomes to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, through vouchers which can be redeemed at local markets and community food projects across four London boroughs, Barnsley and Liverpool. They received a grant in a previous Tech for Good Fund to develop and launch the Rosie app to digitise the reimbursement of Rose Vouchers. This additional funding will enable them to meet increasing national demand by customizing their app to make it scalable to allow them to work with a wider range of local partners such as GP surgeries, food banks and various community services, so that areas can adapt RVP to their local needs.

AVA (Against Violence and Abuse)
Survivors of domestic and sexual abuse often struggle to have their mental health needs met – waiting lists are long and services are rarely trauma-informed. AVA will design and build a digital product to meet these needs. It will give users immediate relief through functions that could include trauma-informed-meditation and tips around coping strategies. The project will test assumptions about what survivors want and need using a steering group of ‘experts by experience’ from scoping through to launch.

Bipolar UK
According to research conducted by Bipolar UK there are 1.3 million people living with bipolar in the UK. They are developing a chatbot to help users self manage their symptoms and provide practical advice. The chatbot combines machine learning with the informed research from Bipolar UK, by giving answers, prompts and signposting users to information. This funding will scale up the chatbot by installing it on the website, integrating it with services, so people can book a call with a volunteer or attend a group.

Deaf Kidz International
DeafKidz International (DKI) is a young organisation working to address the safeguarding and protection needs of Deaf, hard of hearing children and young people. They are developing DeafKidz Defender, an interactive digital game concept that will empower Deaf children aged 7-11 to reduce their risk and vulnerability to abuse and exploitation. There is currently no dedicated digital safeguarding and protection provision specifically aimed at Deaf children of this age in the UK or worldwide.

Muscular Dystrophy UK
Muscular Dystrophy UK is the charity for 70,000 people living with a range of muscle wasting conditions in the UK. The project will develop an online Holistic Needs Assessment portal, where people living with these conditions can conduct their own wellbeing assessments. This  will make it easier for NCAs (Neuromuscular Care Advisors) to manage their care plans and enable them to be signposted more quickly to specialist services. There are only 60 NCAs, supporting about 500 patients.

Ruils
Ruils will transform its highly successful Sitting and Befriending service, which matches trained befrienders to disabled children in south west London. The grant will develop a new website which will empower parents, carers and children to engage directly with the service, outside of office hours. This will remove a huge amount of administration, enabling Ruils staff to significantly expand the service, meaning more befrienders can help disabled children to enjoy activities, gain independence and practice social skills.

stem4
stem4 provides education in secondary schools in four areas of mental health; anxiety and depression, self-harm, eating disorders and addiction with a clear focus on enhancing resilience. Building on the success of their NHS-accredited ‘Calm Harm’ app (helping teenagers manage the urge to self-harm), as well as the previously Tech for Good-funded ‘Clear Fear’ app (helping teenagers manage symptoms of anxiety), stem4 will develop a third app which will use an evidence-based, Behavioural Activation approach to help teenagers manage symptoms of depression.

The Mix
The Mix is the UK’s leading support service for young people, by young people, supporting them to take on any challenge they face; from mental health to money, from homelessness to finding a job, from break-ups to drugs. The Mix will develop chatbot technology to create a personalised experience for young people using their channels. This digitised outreach and engagement will ensure that The Mix’s capacity is increased, users find what they are looking for, benefit from improved signposting to other services and that The Mix can serve a higher percentage of young people.

 

A Fun Way to Learn About Charity Digital Service Design (free download)

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“Her quest had taken her all over the world, to many different charity digital experts and agencies. But she still hadn’t found what she was looking for.”

The Catalyst (part funded by Comic Relief) has launched a new resource to help charity workers learn about digital design. It’s a fable called ‘The Charity Worker and the Digital Service Designer’. It follows one young charity worker’s yearning quest to learn about digital service design. [Read more…] about A Fun Way to Learn About Charity Digital Service Design (free download)