Growing great ideas at the RSA - RSA

Growing great ideas at the RSA

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  • Enterprise
  • Fellowship
  • Social innovation

The RSA is committed to supporting Fellow-led projects to get started or to have greater reach and impact. We do this by providing £100,000 each year to Fellow-led projects through our Catalyst grants; offering crowdfunding support; and helping shape and share Fellows’ projects and ideas.

Inspiring and celebrating initiatives that generate social progress was central to the RSA’s mission when it was founded. Over 260 years later it is still a key part of how the RSA, through our global Fellowship community, makes a real and meaningful difference to society.

We want to continue to celebrate these activities while ensuring that our offer to these projects is as good as it can be. In order to do this we would like to learn more about projects that Fellows lead or are involved in, and we are asking you to share your experiences with us.

Which is where we need your help!

We would love to hear about your projects. What are you working on, running, growing? What are your plans for the future? We have a (genuinely) very quick survey to help us get a snapshot of Fellows projects. If you would like to feed into this survey please do this by 15 June 2017. This will help us get a better picture of what is out there and shape our thinking about current and future project support. It’s not a beauty competition or application form – let us know what challenges the project faces or what you would have done differently. The more we know about your projects the better we can work together.

We would like to hear about all projects, but would be particularly interested in those that:

  • Support the RSA’s mission of enriching society
  • Are up and running and can show evidence of success or sustainability
  • Have the potential to grow beyond the location in which they started

RSA staff and Fellowship Councillors will use this information to reflect on our project support offer and also to help shape our thinking on how we celebrate all of the activity and passion that exists within the Fellowship.

What else can we do to support your project?

 

Shape and share your idea

Do you have an idea that you want to turn into reality? You could pitch at one of our Fellowship events, meet Fellows in your area or search Find a Fellow to connect with others around the world to and raise awareness of your project. You can speak to your Area Manager to get started – we may also be able to support you to share your idea by blogging or tweeting about it, or you may be able to access some small local grants.

Small Catalyst Grants of £1,000 - £2,000

These grants are for new projects that are in their early stages, and in need of a financial boost to help them develop into a sustainable project which will deliver impact. One great example of this is Movement Works which is working with primary schools to explore the benefits of movement and dance on young children’s education.

Scaling Catalyst Grants of £10,000

These grants are for exceptional projects addressing one of our key themes that have clearly demonstrated their proof of concept and are ready to scale up. We offer a limited number of £10,000 grants and will award to the projects where we feel our grant will have the greatest impact. We’ve supported a range of fantastic projects to scale such as Library of Things who are scaling up their innovative community lending hub.

If you would like more information about these grants then do take a look at our project support webpages or email catalyst@rsa.org.uk

If you like to know more about some of the other projects that we have funded through Catalyst grants you can read their blogs on our website.

To take part in our Fellow led project survey please complete our online survey by 15/06/2017. We will respond to all survey respondents by the end of June.

 

Join the discussion

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  • Charlotte,I suspect like all fellows I tend to be involved in many and varied areas of subject matter.

    However one area I am trying to find the most beneficial solution for is------What to do with a company I own called Made in Scotland Ltd and the exclusive use of the brand Made in Scotland when used with a logo which is registered.

    My business partner and myself have owned these assets for many years but the company has not traded for several years although still active with the submission of annual accounts.

    Very briefly we both feel there is now given the plethora of small businesses in Scotland unable by themselves to brand individually because of cost factors to utilise this brand.

    The company additionally provides the quality assurances guarantees of authenticity,traceability,ethicality of manufacturing etc.

    We also own various web addresses supportive of both the company and the brand.

    Our objective is to quite genuinely see these assets used to strengthen Scotland,s export performance in global markets for the benefit of the economy and not  selfishly myself and my business partner.

    Any thoughts,views ideas from fellows would be very welcome.

    • Hi Derek, thanks for this - its a interesting situation to think about. It would be great if you could also complete the online form so that we have this information in front of us when looking at the Fellows projects that come in through this call for information. I hope you find interesting views from other Fellows too. 

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