Inclusive Economy Partnership Mental Health Challenge

What was the Inclusive Economy Partnership Mental Health Challenge?

Between August 2017 and September 2018, Challenge Works delivered the Inclusive Economy Partnership Accelerator, a key part of the partnership supported by the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The IEP is a partnership of businesses, civil society and government departments, working together to solve some of society’s toughest challenges, helping all communities and everyone within them to feel they belong to and can participate in the UK economy.

What happened?

In this strand of the IEP addressing mental health challenges, we provided funding and non-financial support to five organisations enabling businesses to positively impact the mental health of their employees, customers, suppliers and wider communities. By supporting businesses to implement changes within their organisations, the mental health of employees can be improved. Tools and training development can support employees and line managers, and improving the mental health of customers, communities, supply chains and SME networks will help address this challenge. The organisations each received a grant of £20,000.

From the spring to the autumn of 2017 we undertook a discovery phase to determine the best approach with greatest impact. An open call process for the Partnership Accelerator programme and support, including a grant of £20,000 ran from autumn 2017 until spring 2018.

From spring to autumn 2018 we delivered a rapid six-month Partnership Accelerator programme to help six financial inclusion innovations scale. Using the specific partnership accelerator model we developed, we focused on two components of support for the social innovators: support for scaling – provided directly from Nesta (and through procured specialist support) and support for development of partnerships – with delivery group members and others. Additionally, scaling-up was supported through innovators receiving a grant of £20,000.

Impact of the Prize

The five innovators developed more than 40 partnerships in total that increased their combined expected new revenue streams by £835,000.

Across the broader IEP, innovators have developed 100 confirmed partnerships, far exceeding the original programme target of nine partnerships.

Eighty-nine per cent of social innovators surveyed indicated that they were extremely or very well progressed relative to their scaling plans by September 2018.