Latest Catalyst awards including a project in Sydney

The Catalyst grants from the latest round have been announced! They will help build: infrastructure for a more entrepreneurial social sector; skills through working in unlikely groups; farming, gaming, and using smart-phone applications to overcome mental health and communications challenges; a network effect for social change among young people.

The Catalyst fund provides small grants to Fellows who have developed an innovative solution to a social problem. Strong ideas – not only those that receive grants – are helped by the expertise available through the panel, RSA staff and, above all, by our Fellowship at large for example through the RSA SkillsBank. We award grants of £1,000 to £2,000 in the first instance – with grants of £5,000 available upon successful delivery of the first outputs.

In January, a panel with representation from Fellowship Council and senior RSA staff awarded grants to the following projects (subject to agreement of some conditions):

Infrastructure for a more entrepreneurial civil society 

£5,000 to Make a Wave Pre-Incubator – a learning and networking programme to help women leading social enterprises access often-male-dominated angel investor networks
An initial Catalyst grant helped run six pilot sessions with 12 women from across the country, seven of whom are Fellows, with leading angel investors. It has so far resulted in the participants together getting eight subsequent meetings with investors, £112,000 of investment, media exposure and a year’s worth of office space. The additional grant will help set up another round of the programme, but with a difference. Angel investors will arrange to loan participants the programme costs, match-funded by crowd-funding. Angels will also build relationships with the participants for potential subsequent investment. Again, we will help venture leader Servane Mouazan find women who need investment for their social enterprise through the Fellowship. We will also help her build a network of female angels and if you would like to help, please get in touch with Servane.
 
£2,000 to Do a Bit – a simple web and mobile application to connect volunteers and make volunteer coordination more efficient
If you work in or know of an organisation that needs help to coordinating and measuring its volunteering activities, or if you are looking for volunteering activities yourself please get in touch with project leader Andy Gibson.

Learning skills through working in unlikely groups 

£1,000 to Justice Citizens Film Voice – to bring young people with local refugee organisations in Western Sydney to investigate experiences and perceptions of racism by creating films documenting their experiences
Venture leader Keith Heggart will to run a local film festival to disseminate the short films in the area. But if you can assist in helping the films to reach similar audiences further afield through online platforms or film festivals, please get in touch with Keith.

£1,000 to Ask Me – activities in a Surrey town to get young and elderly people exchanging skills such as cooking and internet lessons
Kary Backhouse is looking to hear from successful intergenerational activities that could be a part of the programme, in addition to collaborating with applicants for the intergenerational design brief of this year’s RSA’s Student Design Awards.

Farming, gaming, and using smart-phone applications to overcome mental health and communications challenges

£2,000 to Health Farm – to create indoor farms in health centres to develop a new form of community-based personal recovery for people with mental health challenges
If you have experience in the marketing and sales of food, especially in London, or if you are working with people with mental health challenges and are looking for new income streams, please get in touch with venture leader Paul Smyth.

£2,000 to The ClearFear Game – a non-virtual game to help people with mental health problems overcome social anxiety
Project leader Dr. Martin Webber will bring board game producers and those who have expertise or are experiencing mental health challenges together in London to design and pilot the game. If you can provide the above experience or host the two-day game camp please get in touch with Martin.

£1,500 to iMuse – to build a national guidance service to help small- and medium-sized museums use smart phone and tablet applications to engage more people with communications disabilities in their exhibitions
If you are willing to assist with knowledge of communications disabilities, web/app development, especially in the Reading area, or are a small museum that would like to assist wider participation in your exhibitions please contact Annette Haworth.

A network effect for social change among young people 

£2,000 to 2020 Education – to give young people a social media platform to articulate the challenges, opportunities and their own practical solutions for the world in 2020 that arise from classroom initiatives
If you run or know of a school that runs an innovative programme anywhere in the country that would like to give its students a platform to talk about it, or if you have expertise in marketing and advertising to young people, please get in touch with Andrew Hadley, one of the venture’s leaders.

£2,000 to 50 Foot Women – a mentoring scheme connecting inspirational professional women in the social and public sectors with recent female graduates looking to enter these sectors, particularly first generation graduates
Get in touch with project leader Catherine Fieschi if you are working in creative industries, politics, journalism, academia and social innovation and would be willing to share a small amount of your time to help ambitious young women who don’t have access to the networks or unpaid time to enter those industries.

Register your expertise to help these and other projects

If you want to help projects like those mentioned above, but none of them quite match your skills-set or location, please register in the SkillsBank.  After completing a short registration form we will endeavour to match you up with inspiring projects in need of your help.

Apply for small grants and get help from Fellows for your idea

Alternatively, if you have an idea you are trying to get off the ground, why not apply for Catalyst? You can find out more about what grants are available, what the criteria are for its award and how we help you collaborate with Fellows who have relevant expertise at www.thersa.org/catalyst.

The next deadline for Catalyst applications is Sunday 19 February. Please see more about the criteria at www.thersa.org/catalyst