Comic Relief: HIV in the UK: Think Digital

Overview

In order to encourage organisations to innovate and respond to the challenges present in the HIV sector, they have partnered with the M∙A∙C AIDS Fund and anticipate making up to 10 grants from a total fund of £450,000.

They welcome applications from organisations working in the following areas of work:

• Improve the quality of life for people living with HIV, particularly those who are 50+
• Increase access to services which enable prompt diagnosis of HIV and contribute to HIV prevention
• Address misinformation and the stigma surrounding HIV

What is funded?

A wide range of digital innovations will be considered and their aim is to fund projects that:

• Are focused on specific user needs, and current digital behaviours in their design, delivery and development
• Make best use of web, mobile or internet based technologies, whether this is hardware or software development
• Have potential to scale and be adopted by others
• Disrupt and challenge existing ways of delivering services
• Involve collaborations between those delivering vital support services and digital agencies to ensure reach, user involvement and technical rigour

NB Applicants must be able to demonstrate they follow best practice in digital design and development – see www.gov.uk/design-principles.

Eligibility

Organisations or partnerships applying to this initiative must meet Comic Relief’s general eligibility requirements. In addition:

• Grants are available for organisations based in the UK for work in the UK.
• There is no restriction on the annual income of the organisation or partnership applying for a grant.
• There is no restriction on applying for this grant if you have another grant with Comic Relief.
• They will not fund pure research for the duration of the grant, however, they will support research as part of the grant that results in the creation of a tangible solutions and would expect user-centred research and design processes to be followed throughout.

Please review their grant making policies and FAQs for details of their eligibility criteria for all organisations applying to Comic Relief for funding

Funding Available

• Grants can be for between £20,000 - £80,000, and over a period of six - 18 months.
• They will fund digital solutions at any stage of development (from idea stage to roll out of existing solutions). You will need to have an identified digital partner (or in-house digital expertise) in place at the point of applying for funding.
• They are particularly interested to understand the sustainability and revenue models for the technological solution, so please reflect on this in the application.
• They welcome proposals from the HIV sector and beyond, including unusual collaborations, such as those working together to develop new solutions alongside design or digital agencies.
• The grant will include additional support from social-tech experts, which will include a one day start up workshop at the start of the grant, connections to tech experts, on-going mentoring and two peer learning days.
• Applicants should budget for three trips to London to attend these sessions.
• They expect that for those projects at an early stage of development, the first three months will be dedicated to research, ideas development, user testing or piloting, before development and delivery work begins in full over the remaining life of the project.