Tech Vs Abuse Fund investing £600,000 into Grants for UK Not-for-profit Organizations

Deadline: 4 July 2019

Comic Relief, with Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Clothworkers Foundation, has re-launched the UK Tech vs Abuse funding programme.

The Tech Vs Abuse fund is investing £600,000 into grants for UK not-for-profit organizations, to encourage creative digital solutions to improve the safety of people affected by abuse and improve service delivery. The funding is for digital tools, approaches, services and ideas at very early stages of development, which respond to the design challenges.

Key Design Challenges

Realising it’s abuse
- People have a better understanding of what a healthy relationship looks like, realising when they are experiencing abuse in their relationship and/or when they are abusive towards others.
Finding the right information at the right time
- People are able to find the right information at the right time. Using different platforms, they can access relevant, trustworthy, and safe sources.
Effective real-time support services
- People can find and access services for support (including referrals, if required) seamlessly and with minimal logistical and emotional burden, in a format that works in the moment, context, and time people have.
Recovery
- People have access to advice, information, resources and tools tailored to different situations to help rebuild their lives. This includes support for mental health issues, confidence building, practical needs, and families affected by abuse, and understanding healthy relationships.

Funding Information

This round will aim to fund up to 12 organizations with grants of up to £50,000 over a period of twelve months.
Bids submitted by two or more charities or not-for-profits in the domestic and sexual abuse sector in partnership or consortia can apply for up to £75,000.

Eligibility Criteria

Comic Relief will accept proposals from experienced organizations from all sectors with proposed solutions targeted at anyone affected by abuse. This includes all survivors (female and male and LGBTQ+ groups), friends and family, professionals and perpetrators. For this fund, they are referring to abuse as defined by the UK government.
They are actively encouraging cross-sector partnerships and collaborative proposals, particularly those with specialist organizations taking a lead role, or those which address sector barriers that prevent the delivery of effective services.
As above, Comic Relief welcome proposals from the women and girls sector and beyond, including unusual collaborations, such as those working together to develop new solutions alongside design or digital agencies.
Organization criteria:
- Applicants must be based in the UK.
- Applicants must be not-for-profit organizations. Additionally, Comic Relief do not accept proposals from NHS trusts, hospitals, schools/colleges, statutory bodies including local authorities, and non-registered organizations without constitutions.
- Organizations with an existing Comic Relief, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, or The Clothworkers Foundation grant can apply, as can holders of previous or current Tech vs Abuse grants, if they apply with a new idea, and provided they meet other eligibility criteria.
- Organizations can submit more than one proposal to the initiative.
- Tech development partners can be associated with more than one bid. Once again, they do not expect organizations to have a tech partner at this stage.
- Development partners can include service design and user research agencies.
- As highlighted above, proposals must either be at the concept / idea stage, or an early stage prototype.
- All applicants must identify a project sponsor at senior level i.e. CEO.
- The work to be delivered must take place in the UK.