Guest Post: Making brilliant ideas to tackle isolation happen

Rachel Karasik | November 3, 2011 | Features

You may remember that not too long ago there were two challenges on Simpl’s ‘Asks’ page calling out for ideas to tackle social isolation and poverty in Islington. The ones running the challenge, Islington Giving, are “a campaign for Islington by Islington people,” working to raise £3million over the next three years to help support ideas that will aim to solve some of the biggest issues within their communities.

We asked Jacqui Broadhead to stop in and share some details about the winning ideas from the latest Islington Giving challenges, and explain a bit more about the great ways they are using local donations to fund solutions to local problems.

Islington Giving is a new campaign to encourage Islington residents and businesses to give their money and time to support excellent local community projects that invest in young people, tackle poverty and confront isolation.

We’ve had an amazing year. Launched in September 2010 at The Guardian, we had no idea whether the campaign would be a success or not, or if people would even be interested in supporting brilliant but small and local projects that they hadn’t necessarily heard of.

But the response has been incredible – so far, we’ve raised over £1million, made up of donations as large as £50,000 and as small as those who have given us £10 a month out of their pay.

It’s fantastic, but it also means that we have a huge responsibility to spend the hard earned cash that people have been generous enough to hand over on projects that will make a real difference to people’s lives. We think that the campaign is a powerful force for innovation and change, so as part of that, we wanted to create an open call for ideas that help tackle isolation.

Islington is well known for its restaurants, bars and social life, but it can also be a very lonely place for some of the most vulnerable people in the community – we want to do as much as we can to change that.

The call for ideas was opened in August on our own site and through Simpl, and we received more than 30 applications from organisations looking for a chance at up to £5,000 from a fund of £35,000.

We were looking for projects that not only added something new to the existing mix of projects in the borough, but also showed that our small amount of cash could make a real difference. This is meant to be more than traditional grant funding – all the groups that we fund become our partners as well and we want their help to galvanise their communities to get involved in the campaign. In return, in addition to the funding we will also support them, where needed, with volunteers to help make their projects a success.

The range of projects was amazing – from one that will get volunteers visiting older people in their homes to plant window boxes and have tea and a chat, to one that will support Islington’s most vulnerable parents through a ‘Stay and Play’ open at the weekends when so much else is closed.

We will be running canal trips on Regents Canal with cooking lessons and talks about the surrounding area for those with mental health difficulties, photography classes and tea parties for older people and volunteer led drop-ins at the weekends that will help people who have nowhere else to go.

The projects are so diverse yet they all share a few things in common:

• Looking at ways to engage the most isolated members of the community, by not only having activities and projects they can attend, but bringing some of the activities to their doorstep
• Being led by members of their own community, and which have been developed based on what those members want and need
• Doing something a bit different to change the status quo, particularly looking for gaps in services, like in the evenings and at weekends, when those who are isolated often need the most support
• A lot, but not all, are led by volunteers and use the skills of their communities to do more

We will be keeping up to date with all of our projects, and you will be able to find out much more about them at www.islingtongiving.org.uk in the coming weeks and months. We will also be running another round of challenges in Spring 2012. If you are based in Islington and are interested in the campaign, please drop us a line at mail [at] islingtongiving [dot] org [dot] uk or on Twitter @isgiv