Investing in Ideas
The Big Lottery Fund in Scotland has relaunched their Investing in Ideas programme. The programme awards grants of £500 to £10,000 to test and develop ideas that could eventually become fully-fledged projects or lead to improved services, and they have £1 million to invest in the development of new ideas in 2010-11.
In order to improve Investing in Ideas and widen the scope of projects which are eligible for funding, they have removed the requirement that ideas must fit with an Investing in Communities Investment Area.
They have also simplified the application process to be in-line with our other funding programmes by removing the requirement for applicants to provide supporting documents at the application stage.
Investing in Ideas could pay for the things that can turn an idea into a well-planned project including:
- market research
- feasibility studies
- business planning
- training for your committee
- exchange visits in the UK to see how other projects work
- community consultation
- professional advice
- technical reports and scheme design studies
More details are available on BIG’s website at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/scotland