Fight for Sight: The social change fund

Overview

Fight for Sight fund projects and programmes that drive connections, build confidence and understand what it means to be blind and vision impaired.

The Social Change Fund

They're seeking applications from projects that support and empower children and young people with the tools to live independent and fulfilling lives.

Specifically, they are interested in work that builds social, digital and self-advocacy skills, so that vision impaired children and young people feel connected with each other, with their sighted peers, and with the wider communities around them. They know that provision differs across the country and particularly welcome applications from organisations who are collaborating in order to share best practice, deliver at scale or meet previously unmet need.

Funding Criteria

They’re looking for bright ideas to leave a sustainable, lasting impact.

Ideally, they also want the projects we fund to gather evidence about what kind of changes will make a real difference in the lives of blind and vision impaired people. Their long term goal is to bring about broader social change.

They’ve designed their grant-making to have a sustainable impact at three levels:

• Individual: They fund projects and programmes that make a positive difference to people who are blind and vision impaired.
• Sector: They build partnerships and connections that improve the resilience of community organisations to step up for blind and vision impaired people.
• Societal/systems: They commission research into what it means to be blind or vision impaired. They support and encourage the projects they fund to monitor and report impact to share with others seeking to drive change.

What do they want to fund?

Their research shows that a lack of confidence means that some people self-isolate. Do you have an idea or project to build confidence among people who are blind and vision impaired?

They are keen to fund projects that address three key priority areas:

Social Connections

• Programmes that encourage children and young people to forge long-lasting friendships and connections over time. This could involve connecting vision impaired children with one another based on shared interests or with sighted young people in their communities.
• Programmes that develop social skills that will ultimately facilitate and increase connections confidence in getting out and about, interacting in different places and with different people, engaging in group activities and pursuing hobbies and interests. This might be through creative or cultural activities. .
• Physical activities, including exercise and sports-based programmes that bring people together and facilitate improvements in well-being, resulting in young people feeling more confident and physically comfortable in getting out and about and being active.

Digital Inclusion

• Programmes that increase young people’s confidence in using technologies that can facilitate independence when out and about. This could include training and / or demonstrations of navigational apps.
• Projects that use technology in innovative ways to improve self-confidence and encourage creativity and connection. This might include programmes to experiment with podcast creation, video editing, or experimenting safely with social media.
• Projects that provide technology training to lay foundations for employment and volunteering opportunities.

Personal Resilience and Self-advocacy

• Programmes that equip children and young people with the skills to confidently and safely navigate different environments, and interact with others, including articulating the reasonable adjustments or support they need.
• Workshops for parents and families to explore entitlements for younger children in education and beyond, and to offer advice for accessing different levels of support.
• Services to help children and young people and their families through specialist counselling or psychological support.

This is not a definitive list of projects: they very much welcome applications that present additional innovative and creative ideas for projects under these three key priority areas.

Eligibility

The social change fund supports organisations who directly support blind and vision impaired people or people at risk of losing sight.

All sizes: Don’t be put off applying if your organisation is small. They can help you achieve change. They’re keen to hear from organisations of all sizes that are based in the community, people-powered, and are working to achieve local change.

All locations: They know there are gaps in support around the UK for blind and vision impaired people. If you’re working in a part of the country where it feels like there’s a gap, they’re particularly keen to hear from you.

All types of impact: If your work is not solely focused on vision loss, get in touch. What matters is that projects must be inspired by the needs of, and barriers faced by, blind and vision impaired people, and plan to make a real difference to their lives.

They fund the types of organisations:

• UK registered charities
• Registered Charitable Incorporated Organisations (CIO)
• Charitable companies, limited by guarantee
• Community Interest Companies (CIC), limited by guarantee
• Exempt charities (e.g. educational establishments)

Funding available

Funding is open to organisations from across the UK, and will provide grants of up to £30,000.