Call for New Ideas
The application window for Call for New Ideas: Young People has now CLOSED.
We thank everyone for their contributions and Commonweal will be in touch in due course with all applicants.
What is Call for New Ideas?
The Call for New Ideas is exactly that: our call to the sector to come to us with new and imaginative ideas for ways in which housing can help solve social injustice.
Through the programme, we offer funding to successful applicants to conduct a short-term feasibility study to evaluate a housing and support model tackling social injustice.
The feasibility study will determine if there is scope for the proposed model to operate as a property-based pilot project, which Commonweal would look to support by providing bespoke property for successful applicants to run their pilot over several years.
We would support partners throughout the project development stage until the end of its life cycle, including sharing learnings through media and policy work, and project replication.
Call for New Ideas: Young People
For Call for New Ideas: Young People, we were looking for ideas that tackle injustices faced by young people over the age of 18 who have had experience of least one of:
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The care system
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Mental health problems or are neurodivergent
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Difficult experiences in the education system, particularly those who faced serial exclusion
The deadline to apply has now passed.
Applications are in the process of being reviewed by our Selection Panel made up of sector experts, Commonweal staff and Commonweal Trustees. We will be in contact with all applicants by the end of May to let them know if they have been successful.
To help guide our thinking for Call for New Ideas: Young People, we commissioned national homelessness charity Homeless Link to undertake horizon scanning research to better understand the key drivers of youth homelessness. This research identified the above groups as being particularly overlooked and vulnerable.
The report can be read in full here.
How does it work?
Future Call for New Ideas in 2024:
In September 2024, the programme will re-open to focus on our priority area of work: migration, asylum and human trafficking.
We will update this page with information on this iteration of the Call over the coming months.
Find out what successful Call for New Ideas applicants have to say:
Since launching Call for New Ideas in 2020, Commonweal has successfully supported a number of partners through the feasibility stage, with many now entering the project development process.
"The team at Commonweal were fantastic and supported us all the way through the process, providing expert advice, guidance and signposting when needed...
If anyone has an idea to tackle a social injustice and needs support to develop, I strongly suggest that you consider the Call for New Ideas." - Gaynor Brooke, Head of Services at successful 2022 Call for New Ideas applicant Servol Community Services.
Read more:
Call for New Ideas: It was an opportunity we felt we have worked towards
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Housing ideas wanted for young people impacted by care, mental health and education
Commonweal Housing is inviting not-for-profits to devise new and imaginative housing and support model ideas targeted at specific injustices facing young people, with grant funding available for the most original ideas. The Call for New Ideas programme – a funding mechanism designed to help develop multi-year housing pilot projects – invites not-for-profits to submit new housing…
Call for New Ideas: Commonweal were fantastic and supported us all the way through the process
Gaynor Brooke, Head of Services at successful 2022 Call for New Ideas applicant Servol Community Services, reflects on her organisation’s journey with Commonweal’s Call for New Ideas: I have worked in the Voluntary, Community, Faith, and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector in the West Midlands for over 20 years and joined Servol Community Services in 2021…
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Social justice charity Commonweal Housing is offering funding to frontline organisations across the UK to test new and innovative housing-based solutions to address injustices within the criminal justice system. Through the charity’s Call for New Ideas partnership programme, Commonweal invites not-for-profit organisations to apply for funding between £5,000-10,000 to conduct a short-term feasibility study to…
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Commonweal Housing has partnered with Liverpool City Regional Combined Authority to investigate a Housing First approach for female victims of domestic violence who have committed a minor offence. The charity will fund a feasibility study by Liverpool City Regional Combined Authority to test an alternative to custody for women victims of domestic abuse, by providing accommodation…
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Commonweal Housing has agreed to fund four new imaginative feasibility studies for housing solutions to social injustices. The new partnerships are part of Commonweal’s Call for New Ideas 2022, the charity’s partnership programme established to test new ideas that seek housing-based solutions to social injustices. The Call for New Ideas 2022 partners are: With Commonweal’s…
Commonweal launches its Call for New Ideas 2022 to support organisations with original housing projects
Commonweal Housing has reopened its partnership programme, Call for New Ideas 2022, inviting not-for-profit organisations working with marginalised groups to submit imaginative and original ideas for housing solutions to social injustices. Commonweal is offering frontline organisations funding, support measures and bespoke property in an effort to work with sector experts to design and deliver housing…
Commonweal strikes seven partnerships for innovative feasibility studies
Commonweal Housing has partnered with seven front-line organisations as part of its 2021 Call for New Ideas, the charity’s partnership programme. It has agreed to support and fund the feasibility studies to test the suitability of new innovative models that seek housing-based solutions to social injustices. The new partners are: Homelessness organisation, C4WS Irish Methodist…
Desperate for solutions – where to find them? | Call For New Ideas
As Commonweal launches its 2021 Call For New Ideas, CEO Ashley Horsey reflects on our approach to finding creative solutions to social injustices – and on not being afraid to to make mistakes along the way.
Charity seeks new housing-based project partnerships to tackle social injustices
Commonweal Housing has opened a new call for housing-based project ideas from charitable organisations working to tackle social injustice.