Call for New Ideas
Our invitation to not-for-profits to design and develop new and imaginative ideas for housing and support models that seek to address a specific social injustice.
What is Call for New Ideas?
Over the past four years, we’ve run our Call for New Ideas (CFNI) inviting frontline organisations across the UK to submit housing and support model ideas aimed at improving the lives of specific marginalised groups.
We offer successful applicants between £5,000-£10,000 in grant funding to conduct a feasibility study to further evaluate the viability of your model. The aim is to work in partnership with you to bring your models to life.
It starts with your lightbulb idea, and it finishes, we hope, with a housing and support pilot project running over 5-10 years.
We would support partners throughout the project development stage until the end of its life cycle, including collecting and sharing project learnings to inform best practice and influence policy across the sector.
Feasibility studies we've funded:
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Since launching Call for New Ideas in 2020, Commonweal has successfully supported a number of partners through the feasibility stage, with many now entering the project development process.
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What do successful applicants have to say?
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In the series of blogs below, some of our successful applicants share their journey with Commonweal through the Call for New Ideas.
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​"The process offered the rare opportunity to step back, examine our practice, and think creatively about how to respond to unmet needs.
We are grateful to Commonweal for funding and supporting this work. The opportunity encouraged experimentation, reflection, and honesty - qualities that are often difficult to prioritise in frontline environments. It also demonstrated the value of feasibility studies as tools for innovation, even when the answer is not the one first imagined."
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Call for New Ideas partners Accommodation Concern.
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Flexible Funders
Commonweal has joined a community of open, trusting and flexible funders launched by IVAR and London Funders. We have committed to their eight principles and are now part of a community with other funders and charities to improve practice together.