Hey all, I’m posting this on behalf of Outlandish, who are interested in collaborating with people on both current and upcoming funding calls from Catalyst Open Projects. If you’re interested in collaborating, please reply below!
Sector Challenge briefs
These are available now and focused on systems-level issues. The outputs are prototypes* in four areas affected by COVID-19: early years, financial wellbeing, mental health and wellbeing, and sexual abuse & domestic violence.
*According to Catalyst, “A prototype here might be a product, service, experience, document or a comparison of existing tools.”
Deadline: 7 December 2020 Budget: Up to £35k (incl. VAT)
Length: 11 weeks Work begins: 11 January 2021 Work ends: 26 March 2021
Development briefs
These will be made available from 30 November and will focus on development as well as discovery and definition in a wide range of areas. I should imagine that most of the organisations behind these projects will have been one of the 103 orgs that took part in a Catalyst-funded discovery phase last month.
Deadline: 16 December 2020 Budget: Up to £28k (incl. VAT)
Length: 10 weeks Work begins: 18 January 2021 Work ends: 26 March 2021
If any of this sounds of interest, then please do reply below. A few people in the network have already been in touch, and if there’s enough to warrant a call, we’ll organise one ASAP!
I’ve been keeping an eye on Catalyst projects but many seemed a little out of reach given our current size. We’d love to collaborate with Outlandish on a few of these. I think lots of Outlanders are familiar with us, but happy to explain who we are / our capabilities. Chris
Thanks @droom and @roygolan. Sofi is based in Israel, right? We’ll have to double-check that you’re eligible for this funding, as they state:
Catalyst is a collective of digital agencies, funders and charities based in the UK, which works to improve the digital, data and design capabilities of charities and civil society organisations
Someone may know more than me about this, for example if Outlandish is the lead organisation, for example? Otherwise, I can ask Catalyst for clarification
Hey Doug - Chris from Go Free Range here. We’d certainly be interested in learning more and potentially collaborating. The budgets are fairly small for 10 week projects (10 weeks at 5 days a week for a single person would be £560/day including VAT which is somewhat under our standard day rate and lower than we’ve historically charged even for charitable projects). Do you know if these projects are likely to involve custom software development, or are they further discovery/research type ones?
Hi @chrislowis thanks for the expression of interest and you raise a good point about day rates. Let’s talk about that when we meet, and I can go through where we ended up at with recent Catalyst projects I’ve led
I’ve had confirmation from Catalyst that non-UK based individuals and orgs are fine as subcontractors so long as they’re named in the bid. (@roygolan)
We’re meeting at 14:00 this Friday, 20th November. Want to join us? Reply here to say you’re interested (to encourage others!) and DM me your email address
If the timelines were different, we’d certainly be up for a direct collaboration.
But as they are what they are, feel we’d love to help out but in a more limited capacity, rather than shaping the approach in the lead.
If there is space, therefore, for an “indirect” collaboration, we’d be up for that. For example, if after conversing on Friday there is felt a need for more user research shaped people on the project, please do reach out as we can plausibly make this work.
The one on volunteering looked particularly interesting to us and something we’ve observed in our own work - high volunteer demand, low supply of volunteers work.
Two updates: