Pitch your idea for social change and win funding at Chain Reaction

UnLtd, The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, is giving delegates at Chain Reaction 2009 on 12 November in Canary Wharf, London, the opportunity to secure one UnLtd Level 1 Award with support and up to £5,000 of cash to turn their idea into a reality.

Level 1 Awards are designed to help make new ideas become real projects and are aimed at individuals or informal groups of people who want to get their idea off the ground. The winner will receive funding to help with the running costs of the project alongside a package of ongoing support.

Delegates will have a window of three hours from the start of the event at 9am to drop in and pitch their ideas in the hope of being shortlisted by an acclaimed panel including Oli Barrett (Connected Capital, Make Your Mark With A Tenner), Rachel Elnaugh (Serial Entrepreneur, former BBC Dragon from Dragon’s Den), and Natalie Campbell (Enterprise UK).

The chosen finalists will take part in a Dragon’s Den style live pitching session to present their ideas where the winner will be decided by a unique audience vote. UnLtd’s very own Cliff Prior, CEO, will be compere at the session and alongside the panel, will be on hand to answer any questions relating to the start up of social ventures, providing expert advice.

The Chain Reaction event brings people together to share ideas for social change, including those from government, charity and business. Key themes of the day include new ideas for financing social change, new ideas for delivering public services, new ideas for organising the business of social change and new ideas for engaging communities. Speakers include, Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for London, Martha Lane Fox, Chair of the Digital Inclusion Task Force, and Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour New Media Campaign Spokesperson.

Cliff Prior, CEO at UnLtd said, ‘Chain Reaction is an important event because it brings together people who have the power to make social change and presents a unique platform to hear the latest ideas. UnLtd are proud to be a catalyst for social change and to provide the necessary funding and support to turn those ideas into a reality’.

For more information on UnLtd, visit www.UnLtd.org.uk or to register as a delegate at Chain Reaction, click here (Under 21’s go free!)

Worried about funding for your charity? Chain Reaction can help.

Silly question really, most people involved in charities are worried about their funding most of the time, particularly at the moment. Well, we can’t promise to solve all your problems, but you might get off to a good start at Chain Reaction this year.

Throughout the day the Social Investment Business will be running a drop-in service for third sector organisations. As the largest social investor in the UK, they provide loans, grants and support to third sector organisations. Find out how they could support your organisation.

Once you’ve had a chat with them, there are sessions looking at how to finance social change running all day (see the full programme (pdf) for more). Angela Smith MP, Minister for the Third Sector, will be talking alongside Sophi Tranchell, CEO of Divine Chocolate, discussing different ways to invest in social value. Later on, the head of Kiva in Italy will talk about their innovative microlending scheme as part a session on ‘Ideas for Financing Social Change,’ alongside Michael Green, author of Philanthrocapitalism. And in the final session Sue Cooper from Triodos bank will talk about some of the tools available.

The last year has been very tough for charities, and it’s becoming clear we can’t just return to business-as-usual. We’re all looking around for new ideas, new ways of raising money so we can continue achieving our aims, and luckily this year’s Chain Reaction will be full of them.

Chain Reaction keynote speaker introduces himself

Simon Berry is one of the keynote speakers at this year’s Chain Reaction event. He’s behind a fantastic campaign to harness Coca-cola’s distribution chain in developing countries for social good, and he explains it below. Find out more about Colalife at http://www.colalife.org/

Guest blog: Why I’m coming to Chain Reaction again this year

My name’s Beth Tilston and I attended Chain Reaction last year.  Despite the fact that I couldn’t eat the lovely food (you’ll read why below) I had a great time and made some important connections.

I was looking for ideas and opportunities for food-related projects and through putting a sign up on the board, I met Ian Collingwood who organised the Middlesborough Urban Farming Project.   We discussed the possibility of running a similar event in Brighton.

After Chain Reaction I went back to Brighton and investigated whether this would be possible.  I found out that a similar scheme, called Harvest Brighton and Hove was already in the pipeline and ready to set the town alight with its championing of local food.  Ian had, however, piqued an interest in urban agriculture and I during the year I have gone on to help set up the ‘Edible Campus’ at Brighton University and am in the planning process of a research trip to North and South America to learn lessons in urban agriculture that can inform what we do here in Britain.

Last year I was in the middle of a 100 mile food challenge.  This meant that everything I ate for a year came from within 100 miles of where I was (hence why I didn’t eat the lovely food provided – there will be no such restrictions this year).  I wrote an article about this for Permaculture Magazine and was contacted by an agent who asked me if I would be interested in writing a book about it.  I’m now working with my agent to develop a proposal to send to publishers.  The current working title is ‘Local: Finding value in the things close to home’.

I’ve also just started my own social enterprise, Go Light (www.golight.org.uk) which has been set up  to provide positive action for energy descent. We have grown out of the Transition Town movement and focus on projects that help build connected and resilient communities that are better able to cope with the effects of peak oil, climate change and economic instability.

We work towards:

• Developing people’s practical skills in key ‘resilience’ areas such as cooking, growing and appropriate technology.
• Education and awareness around climate change, peak oil and energy and resource use.
• Setting agendas and shaping ideas with decision makers around individual and community resilience to climate change and peak oil.

We have worked with Sprout Design as Permaculture consultants on a new product design and are currently developing the new schools education programme for The Low Carbon Trust.

I’ll be at Chain Reaction this year and I’d like to make even more connections than I did at the last event.  I’d like to meet people from think tanks who value my skill and knowledge set and would like to hear what I have to say.  I’d like to hear from climate change, peak oil and community building organisations who would like to work with Go Light.  I’d like to talk to people who are teaching practical skills about the challenges and opportunities.

See you all at Chain Reaction 09.

Tackle climate change by bringing together government, business, charity, and the public

There have been plenty of ideas for how to tackle climate change. In fact campaigns, business ideas, debates, and literature on climate change have sprung up everywhere over the last couple of years, which is reassuring – presumably there are some good ones in there somewhere. People far more informed than me can judge which those are.

Innumerable technological solutions – from the sensible to the bizarre – have been suggested. Others have looked at what government can do, and again proposals vary widely: carbon taxes, global trading schemes, more regulation. Others focus on the individual, trying various ingenious ways to nudge or browbeat people towards consuming less carbon. Yet others focus on business, and the role they can play in both implementing and promoting low carbon alternatives. I’m sure that on Blog Action Day today, you’ll be able to read about all of them.

So I’m not going to propose yet another solution, I’m just going to suggest that solutions will only be successful if they carry everyone – government, business, the public – along with them. A brand new technology won’t achieve anything unless someone (government, or consumer) pays for it. Governments probably won’t introduce new measures unless there’s public support for them – particularly if they’re likely to make people worse off. In the UK, I think it’s desperately important to remember that most people aren’t really behind the climate change argument, and charities are vital in persuading people and government why it’s important. And a great way to engage business is through a bit of public pressure – the 10:10 campaign, for example, has done a great job of making business realise what’s in it for them.

And where could these kind of collaborations – between government, business, charity, young people – happen? Yes, that’s right, at Chain Reaction. So I suggest you come along. You can meet up with Mary Rhead-Corr, Executive Director of the United Bank of Carbon, Guy Watson, the founder of Riverford Organics, and a load of people from all sorts of places committed to social and environmental change. They know, and we know, that tackling climate change in a socially just way is one of the most important challenges we face.

Call for Brollies! Can you help?

Can you help?

Our Chain Reaction event takes place on 12 November in Canary Wharf, and will bring together people, passionate about social change, who are saying ‘we can make a difference’.

Accessing some of the workshop space at the event this year will involve a very short walk outside.

While we cannot predict what the weather will be doing that day, we can be prepared!  So we are looking for anyone who may be able to support the event by donating umbrellas for participants to use.

So if you are an organisation that has umbrellas (however many) that you would be willing to donate to the event we would love to hear from you!  

On one hand your help will potentialy help keep the ‘Great British Weather’ off the heads of our participants. 

On the other hand its a fab branding opportunity to our audience of decision makers, community activists, young people, students and change makers.

If you can help please do get in touch with us at info@chain-reaction.org  - we’d love to hear from you!