Not yet funded.
#1 This could be your project Apply now
Frequently Asked Questions
About the whole idea
Why are you doing this now?
Funding for charities and social purpose organisations is under extreme pressure right now. Government spending is being reduced. Whilst at the same time, social problems, like unemployment, costs associated with ageing, and homelessness are increasing. It has rarely been more important for social organisations to innovate how they deliver services and raise the funds they need to be able to sustainably deliver impact.
What will it cost?
A flat £20,000 fee payable at the start of the incubation process. The value of the services will be about £600,000 shared between the four organisations. As you can see, it’s a good deal. The value of the contribution is small but important for two reasons. First, if organisations have a financial stake, then we know they’ll take it seriously and really think about how it can be maximised going forwards. Secondly, to take the product further will almost certainly require more resources, and an organisation that doesn’t have the £20,000 fee, is less likely to have the reserves to build on the foundations we create.
Who’s paying for it all?
Sidekick Studios, who are the company behind this (hence Sidekick School), are providing this service at cost, as opposed to their traditional consultancy rates. This is in turn is being funded by Nominet Trust, who are actively seeking ways in which digital can be used to support social organisations and improve society.
About the selection process
Who is this Prize open to?
The prize is open to any not-for-profit organisation that is delivering social value. We are agnostic in terms of company structure. It could be a charity, a mutual, a cooperative, a social enterprise, a company limited by guarantee. Whatever. As long as you’re amazing, with amazing potential.
However, organisations will need to have been trading for at least 5 years, and we will be looking closely for organisations with a strong management team. This is because we know that from our experience it is difficult to scale services in this space without the knowledge, operational history and credibility that experience brings.
We should also highlight that we intend to focus on mid-size organisations, which potentially lack the reserves and ability to raise funds of larger organisations, but have more capacity and resources than smaller charities. It’s an arbitrary number – and we may well change our minds once we start work – but we’re thinking about organisations with at least 40 employees, trading over £1m / year. We’re not closing any doors, but at the moment, this is our best guess. More detail on the selection criteria can be found on the apply now page.
About the incubation process
What’s the core offer?
We are making available for six months a strategy director, a design director, technical director, user experience lead, user interface designer and a lead developer to support 4 organisations. Alongside this, we will drop in other specialists into the process, such as user research, service design and evaluation analysts. How and when this team is deployed will need to be flexible based on how the product development process is going, but we’re expecting to support 2 organisations at the same time, in three months cycles. Each organisation will receive approximately 1,200 man hours of support to focus on thinking about and building the digital product. more information about the process can be found on the programme page.
How long will it last?
We are offering each organisation roughly 1,200 man hours over a 3 month period. The team will be dedicated to this programme for 6 months, which will be broken down into two three month cycles, but there is flexibility built into the process to allow for setbacks, re-thinks, failures, internal change, people going on holiday and all the other human stuff that disrupts perfectly laid plans.
How flexible are the start and end dates?
The team has been set aside from February to July 2012. At least one organisation will need to start in February. And it’ll need to be all done six months later. Within that, there is flexibility.
Where will it take place?
In our amazing new warehouse studio space near Old Street. It’ll have furniture by then.
What happens after the process?
It’s hard to say until we get there. Our offer is to support the organisation only in this three month process. This should be enough to provide the springboard for the organisation to take the innovation forward, be it through internal investment, raising finance externally or through customers and revenue. We’ll be happy to advise on potential future directions. Most of all, we look forward to a nice firm handshake and being proud of the work we have done together.
About the product we will make together
Where does the idea come from?
It’s a collaboration. Typical challenges put a lot of emphasis – too much we think – on the idea. We would rather stress the team and the organisation, and the market opportunity. As such, we’re only asking for the organisation to sketch out a preliminary idea at the application stage. This is more for guidance and inspiration, as opposed to being the thing that we plan to build.
Through the application process, we hope that the conversations will be creative and generative, and possibilities can emerge from good old fashioned sitting down and talking. We won’t be putting on elaborate workshops. It’ll be two sets of people sitting down and thinking about what is possible. From this, we think the best ideas will emerge.
Who owns the idea and the product?
The organisation does. Sidekick School take no stake in the final solution.
Does it have to be selling to consumers?
Not necessarily, but probably. The key advantage of digital is that whether you are an individual, a small organisation or a huge organisation, you can reach the same number of people, if you have the right product. The cost of acquisition can be almost zero. Digital dis-intermediates traditional supply chains, allowing organisations to connect directly with people, and for those people to pay at the point of connection, wherever they are. Our gut feeling is that the private pay market is important given the spending cuts – but is also rich in potential, and we are particularly keen to explore this space.
Having said that, if there’s a compelling case for digital to be used to reduce the cost of service delivery, or something else which we haven’t expected which can help us achieve the same end goal – super sustainability – then we will look at it.
Is there any chance we will be developing products with our competition?
Unlikely. We expect to pick organisations from different sectors, which should allay any fears of intellectual property protection. However, we do expect the organisations to collaborate. One of the advantages of what we’re doing is the opportunity for a cohort of organisations to come together and support one another, see the patterns in the problems and challenges, and share learnings.
