FAQs

Inspiring Scotland is a charity that uses money and skills to improve the lives of Scotland’s most vulnerable people. By putting in place significant investment and development support for Scotland’s charities we are changing people’s lives for the better.

Investment from a range of investors, all driven by a desire for social change, is used to target social issues affecting people in Scotland. Inspiring Scotland is committed to delivering work that has a measurable impact and uses robust evaluation to find out what is working so everyone involved can build on success and improve results.

There are a range of investors: individuals; Government; business leaders, and grant making trusts.

14:19

Inspiring Scotland’s first fund, the 14:19 Fund, is investing in 22 charitable ventures which are all working with 14 to 19 year olds who are struggling to make a successful transition from school to the next stage of their lives. Investors in this fund include Scottish Government, individuals, trusts and foundations and businesses are also involved.

Go Play

Go Play is a two year programme to support the development of the play sector in Scotland and invests in 27 ventures. The focus is on ‘free play’ in 5-13 year olds. ‘Free play’ is the type of play led by children without an aim, structure or set of rules being imposed on it. Go Play programme stems from the Equally Well report that recognised the importance of play in contributing to healthy outcomes for children and reducing health inequalities across Scotland. The Scottish Government is the single investor in Go Play and this programme is therefore slightly different to the 14:19 Fund.

• Charities struggle to secure long term funding, which makes it very difficult for them to deliver strategic work and also diverts resources from delivery to managing relationships with funders.
• Bringing together investment from Government, businesses, individuals and the voluntary sector achieves more than any one of these could do themselves.

Inspiring Scotland was launched in January 2008, and became a fully independent organisation at the start of 2009. Its early development was supported by Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland.

Organisations receiving investment from Inspiring Scotland experience a close relationship. We will actively participate in helping organisations to succeed and we will work with organisations to build their capacity in core functions as well as in the delivery of their funded projects. At times, this high level of engagement will demand significant investment of time from management, staff and board members.

For further guidance please click here to see the Inspiring Scotland Investment Model section on the website.

Early Years Early Action is a fund run by Inspiring Scotland with investment from the Scottish Government to improve the outcomes for vulnerable young children and to help them to achieve their potential. The fund will increase voluntary sector organisations’ capacity to deliver front-line services to children and families.

There is a wide body of research and evidence that shows the significance of investing in a child’s earliest years. By doing this it can yield savings in the short, medium and long term and a child can grow into a happy and well developed adult.

For further guidance please click here to see the Early Years Research section.

The Scottish Government is the single investor in the Early Years Early Action Fund. Key to the Inspiring Scotland model is the additional development support that is provided by the Performance Advisor team and through pro bono supporters from the private sector.

We have a small team of Performance Advisors who will be dedicated to working with charities invested in the Early Years Early Action Portfolio. They will work closely with the charities both during the application process and during the period of the investment. They will provide development support, monitor the delivery of the work and provide regular performance reports. Investment will be released in stages, dependent on delivery of results.