# EU grants available for social change planning

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2020/03/04/eu-grants-available-for-social-change-planning/
- Published: 2020-03-04T14:10:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**The European Social Catalyst Fund (ESCF) is inviting applications for a new initiative
designed to have significant impact on some of Europe’s most pressing social challenges.**

The ESCF will provide financial and capacity building support to develop plans to
scale proven social service innovations. It is anticipated that these plans will
provide details of how public and private resources (philanthropy and/or social 
investment) can be brought together in a range of collaborations.

A key focus will on the role that philanthropy and social finance can play in working
with the public sector to help re-focus public spending in a more effective direction
in the interest of European citizens.

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[The ESCF](http://www.euscf.eu) has been established and co-funded by the **European
Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme**, **Genio** (Ireland), **
the Robert Bosch Stiftung **(Germany) and the **King Baudouin Foundation** (Belgium).

It will award planning grants across a range of priority social challenge areas 
within, or across, European Union Member States.

## Objectives of the grants

The purpose of the grants is to support the development of detailed implementation
plans aimed at reducing, or overcoming, social challenges. Innovations will be identified
through a pan-European call and all eligible applications will be evaluated against
published criteria.

Preference will be given to innovations that have the most robust evidence of success
and that aim to reach the most significant scale. Each selected application will
receive a planning grant of up to €100,000 along with capacity building support.
A minimum of €600,000 will be allocated to support at least 6 plans.

It is intended that during the project a further phase will be designed, based on
learning obtained, which will include a focus on supporting implementation of plans
to scale proven social service innovations.

Applications can be made online with the deadline **15th April 2020**.

The objective of the ESCF is to bring together public and private resources to improve
social services to enable people who need support to live as valued and participating
members of their communities.