The Innovation Exchange is working to grow innovation from the third sector. We are focused on next practice – on solutions to problems we are yet to solve, like how to provide personalised care for all or activities that speak to the needs of every young person.
Read here about our latest plans. Click here for information about our Next Practice programme and NESTA Innovation Exchange Fund.
The third sector is teeming with great ideas, but too few of them change the world. Innovators, investors and commissioners often lack each other’s phone numbers and the capacity and incentive to collaborate. As a result, innovations get a start, but struggle for the connections and resources to sustain or scale. Innovation Exchange exists to tackle this problem, bringing people together to grow third sector innovation.
In the past, support for third sector innovation has been too centralised, politicised and passive. In contrast, the Innovation Exchange works as an honest broker,
• surfacing opportunities for innovation;
• helping innovators, investors and commissioners to connect around them;
• and actively supporting groups to collaborate, develop and grow innovation
Our pitch to the third sector is simple; don’t give your idea away, but don’t keep it to yourself.
Innovation Exchange provides both a vehicle for innovation and fuel for innovation. Through events and online exchange, we enable people to come together around opportunities to innovate. Through work like our Festivals of Ideas, and through our website, we are already sparking connections that strengthen innovation and draw new resources into the third sector. We are also providing direct support for the very best of third sector innovation, through advice and facilitation and access to a £200k NESTA Innovation Exchange Fund. This programme will enable innovators to develop, evaluate and grow their work.
Innovation Exchange is not about policy buzz-words or novelty for its own sake. Some of the best third sector innovations are no longer new, but they have been ignored for too long and trapped at their source. Equally, the Exchange supports interaction that sparks real action on social challenges. The first such challenges on which we are focused are those of supporting independent living and excluded young people.
In eighteen months, the Innovation Exchange will have been successful if:
• There is a set of innovative third sector projects that owe their excellence and growth to the Innovation Exchange
• We have learnt about how best to support innovation in the third sector
• We have built a legacy that will support third sector innovation in the future
For more detail about the Innovation Exchange, click here.
Click here for more information about the Innovation Exchnage Next Practice programme and NESTA Innovation Exchange Fund
Whether you are an innovator, expert, commissioner or social investor, Innovation Exchange can help your great ideas to take off.
