Guidance

Youth Social Action Fund: call for ideas

The Youth Social Action Fund calls for ideas about social action passports and social action award programmes are now closed.

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Detail

The Youth Social Action Fund offered financial support to social action programmes.

All calls for ideas are now closed. Find out more about the programmes who received grant funding.

Birmingham and Kent - call now closed

The first call for ideas sought bids for programmes to be delivered in Birmingham and Kent (specifically, Thanet, Swale, Shepway, Dover, and Canterbury) which provided social action opportunities for 10 to 20 year olds. The programmes had to either:

  • focus on 10 to 14 year olds, or demonstrate how they would fill a gap in existing provision for other age groups within the 10 to 20 age range
  • support the take-up of, and progression between, social action opportunities for 10-20 year olds, and the overall success of those programmes

There was up to £3 million for this call, which was completely funded by the Cabinet Office Centre for Social Action.

Middlesborough and Lancashire - call now closed

The second call for ideas sought bids for programmes to be delivered in Middlesbrough and Redcar, and Lancashire which provided social action opportunities for 10 to 14 year olds and could create positive outcomes for young people, including improved attainment and engagement at school.

There was up to £2 million for this second call, and this was co-funded by the Cabinet Office and the Education Endowment Foundation.

Passport and Awards – call now closed

The third call for ideas sought bids for programmes to complement those that were funded from the earlier calls on 27 June (Birmingham and Kent, and Middlesbrough and Lancashire) through:

  • a Social Action Passport that would enable young people to record all of their social action outcomes in 1 place - there was up to £50,000 of funding available for this call
  • an awards system which would recognise and reward the social action of young people, and create a useful shorthand for young people to describe their social action - there was up to £75,000 available for this call

There was up to £125,000 for this third call, which was completely funded by the Cabinet Office Centre for Social Action.

The Youth Social Action Journey Fund - call now closed

The fourth call for ideas sought bids from programmes delivering across England to:

  • increase the number of young people aged 10 to 20 taking part in high quality, social action opportunities on their existing programmes
  • embed National Citizen Service in the social action journey of young people with whom they work

There was up to £6 million for this call, which was funded by the Cabinet Office Centre for Social Action.

On 21 November 2013 the independent Step Up To Serve campaign was launched. Led by HRH The Prince of Wales, the campaign aims to increase the quality, quantity and frequency of social action - “practical action in the service of others” - for young people aged 10 to 20.

The campaign’s interim report, In the Service of Others, which the government endorsed, identified that creating a journey between social action opportunities is critical and that National Citizen Service could be a universal moment in a decade of opportunities.

Since 2011 National Citizen Service (NCS) has worked with over 65,000 young people and it is growing so it can be available to all 16 and 17-year-olds to support the important transition to adulthood.

This fund sought to support organisations to make this journey a reality by increasing the number of quality social action opportunities for young people aged 10 to 20, embedding NCS into this journey and improving the handover from one social action opportunity to the next.

The ambition for this Youth Social Action Journey Fund over 2 years is to:

  • learn about how the Campaign for Youth Social Action Principles and Outcomes Framework work in practice and contribute to an evidence base which shows the impact of social action on outcomes for young people and their communities
  • work with existing social action providers delivering in England to grow in a sustainable way, expanding their reach and impact
  • integrate NCS and other programmes into a seamless social action journey for young people
Published 27 June 2013
Last updated 19 February 2014 + show all updates
  1. Updated page to make it clear that the call for ideas is now closed and linked through to announcement of programmes that have received grant funding.

  2. New call for ideas added.

  3. Added information about a call for ideas about social action passports and social action award programmes in Birmingham and Kent.

  4. First published.