Dream Fund Innovation Toolkit
The Dream Fund is always highly competitive and the bar is set very high for what makes a successful applicant.
We recognise that producing transformative projects is a difficult and time consuming process and we want to support applicants through the process of developing their ideas.
We have developed an Innovation Toolkit to support applicants in developing their ideas into life-changing projects.
The first 10 pages provide an overview of the innovation process and the various elements you will need to bring together to create your Dream project. Your project may need support in terms of developing your project partnership, researching the beneficiaries or ensuring your project idea demonstrates long term impact.
To get the most out of the innovation toolkit please keep your focus to these pages initially.
Each stage contains a number of practical innovation tools to help you think more creatively and effectively about each stage. These are accessible via the links on each page.
This toolkit has been designed to help you develop original and innovative projects for your Dream Fund application. It contains tools you can use to:
- Identify the problem you want to fix
- Create truly collaborative partnerships
- Understand your audience and their needs
- Develop and build ideas.
The Dream Fund Innovation Toolkit contains the following elements:
1. Introduction to Innovation
Innovation is not just about coming up with new ideas. It is about developing new ideas that meet a genuine need and then delivering them. It is also a process that can be followed.
“Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing them”
2. Project Focus
It is important to be clear at the very start about what the focus of your project is. What problem are you seeking to solve? Why? How does it fit with the Dream Fund theme that you have chosen?
The tools in this section will help you to identify your area of focus, quantify your ambition and understand who will benefit.
3. Working in Partnership
Working in partnership with other organisations is an essential part of the Dream Fund criteria. You will be judged on the strategic alignment of your organisations, how your skills and capabilities compliment each other and how collaborative you are. How you identify the right partner and how you work together is therefore a hugely important part of your project.
4. Research
This stage will help you to understand all that you can about the problem you are seeking to solve and the people who will benefit from it.
5. Ideation
This stage is all about developing creative and innovative ideas that will help you to solve the challenge that you have set yourself. If you already have a big idea, there are tools to help you to really stretch that idea to make sure it is Dream Fund ready. All the research that you have already conducted will feed in to this stage and provide the platforms for your idea generation.