As seed content for the upcoming collaborative research effort to identify funding opportunities for Edgeryders-ish projects, here is what the PayCoupons project has collected / found out so far. It concentrates on grant funding for social innovation, digital tech and related ideas and projects. It is only about monetary funding options.
Feel free to adapt, remix, reuse, or just extend.
Funding option databases / directories / networking options
By adequacy for Edgeryders-ish projects (pro-social innovation, with and without tech elements).
- Impact investing collection.
- Grants and fundraising directory.
- Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen.
- European Foundation Center.
- Foundation Center. See also .
- Request for Proposals collection. Lists "all" current requests for proposals.
- Portugal Ventures Access Point.
- Big Society Capital intermediaries. (UK)
- Big Lottery Fund programs. (UK)
- Big Society policy "growing the social investment market". (UK)
- Wikipedia: Social Entrepreneurship: Förderung und Ausbildung.
- Spain Startup Map. A Spanish incubator, investor and startup community.
- Wikipedia: Impact Investing.
- AngelList.
- f6s.
- Social Innovation Europe.
- Association of Spanish Foundations.
- Spanish Foundation Database. By the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture.
- Directory of foundations in Catalonia.
- Studiolab Community. Community for collaborative project development, incl. finding funding options together.
- Digital Social Innovation. "a network of organisations that use the Internet for the social good"
- Random rich people. Maybe just e-mail an application to hundreds of rich but decent people, those who care for society in some way. Could be worth a try :)
Specific funding options
Roughly sorted by adequacy, the most fitting ones first.
- EIC Pathfinder. A major innovation support program by the European Commission for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) that will run from 2021 - 2027.
- Schwab Foundation for Entrepreneurship.
- Social Impact Lab.
- Social Venture Fund. A German venture capital fund for social enterprises. Capital has to be paid back (with a benefit probably), but they do not require a permanent equity in the company. They got 17 million EUR from the European Investment Fund into their fund money, as per this source.
- John Templeton Foundation.
- MacArthur Foundation.
- Knight Foundation.
- Peery Foundation.
- Open Society Institute.
- EU Innovation Vouchers for SMEs. We could probably get one of them too; it’s a voucher for 10 000 EUR, to be spent on digital technology and skill development. See also.
- Commons for Europe. Includes the Code for Europe fellowships.
- Ashoka Fellows. The Ashoka Fellows program is basically paying a monthly allowance to social entrepreneurs.
- EU Strategy 2020 funds for reducing poverty. Because it seems EU is lacking behind its goal to reduce poverty by 25% by 2020. So there should be funds for it, and barter economy would solve the issue by empowering people. See.
- BonVenture. Impact investing in German speaking regions.
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They want to eradicate poverty in the world, which seems a good fit for supporting a DIY economy system.
- Social Innovation Competition by European Investment Bank.
- Oltre Venture. A Milan based impact investment fund, called "Oltre Venture (Luciano Balbo)". On the Social Innovation Competition 2014 launch event we were told that, as winners of the last year’s round, we could ask there for support / funding.
- Social Innovation Tournament.
- Geeks Without Bounds. Accelerator for humanitarian impact companies.
- Portugal Ventures.
- StartUp. A regular startup competition.
- MĂĽnchner Businessplanwettbewerb.
- Interface Europe. A list of all existing FP7 calls and some related calls. Mostly not interesting for individuals and unincorporated groups, except by participating in another entity’s proposal.
- Social Good Lab. A French public / state fund for hightech social enterprises, with grants of up to 100 000 EUR.
- Unicredit Foundation. A philantropic funding organization. They were present during the panel discussion of the SIC2013 award ceremony.
- i-propeller.
- Nominet Trust. A social investment fund. Applicants have to be in the UK (with few exceptions), but that’s not a problem as we can apply via Edgeryders LbG. Edgeryders LbG has a working relationship with them (managed one grant from them already).
- European Social Fund (ESF). It had 76 billion EUR of funding available in 2007-2013, and probably similar in 2014-2020.
- EU PROGRESS calls for proposals. "Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity". A funding program by the European Commission, DG Employment. Includes social innovation funding. From time to time there are open calls for proposals where one can submit applications to. "For the period 2014-2020, the ’Progress’ element of EaSI will continue its current activities (analysis, mutual learning and grants) and will have a specific budget for social innovation and social policy experimentation. The total proposed budget for ’Progress’ is around €500 million for the period 2014-2020." [source]. See also.
- Comptoir de l’ Innovation (SOS Group). Nice social innovation funding group, present at the panel discussion of the SIC2013 award ceremony.
- NESst.
- Toniic Europe.
- European Youth Award. EU / Council of Europe funded program with awards for digital social entrepreneurs under 30.
- EU programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI). The new umbrella program of PROGRESS and others, "with a proposed budget of €815 million for the 2014-20 period." [source]
- European Structure Fonds. Meant to tackle youth joblessness. "Sechs Milliarden Euro hat [...] [die EU] für die kommenden sieben Jahre für die Initiative Jugendbeschäftigung eingeplant, allein für die Regionen mit über 25% Jugendarbeitslosigkeit. Die Gelder sollen aus den Strukturfonds kommen." [source]
- enorm Sozialunternehmer-Wettbewerb.
- Youth in Action Call for Proposals. Project proposals are possible by informal groups of youth and all kinds of incorporated groups, but not by individuals. Individuals can however take part in existing programs. See also the overview.
- Bethnal Green Ventures. 15 000 GBP of investment and a 3 month incubator program in London, for 2 x 10 startup companies per year.
- FundedByMe. An angel crowd-investing platform.
- EU Social Innovation Competition (Diogo Challenge).
- Gründerwettbewerb – IKT Innovativ.
- Erasmus for Entrepreneurs. From the experience of Caspar Diederik, it is possible to define ones own EfE program in a way that it benefits both the host entrepreneur and ones own project. This results in funding for 6 months. In our case, a collaboration about community development would be good, residing in a company with an existing community around alternative economics.
- WCAP grant. Second call (15 x 25 000 EUR grant, no equity) will close 2013-09-30.
- Accion VentureLab. 100k - 500k of VC funding in exchange for equity. But because it’s about equity, it is not a good option here.
- Seedrs. A seed funding site for investing into startups, in exchange for equity. Not a good option here because it’s about handing out equity.