joereddington-public
commented
5 years ago Step 1
Email:
Subject: This Is Rubbish Plan Plastic Application 2019 Content:
Dear Hubbub,
Please find attached our due dilligence files for the plan plastic application.
- Our Accounts document: Audit_This_is_Rubbish_Joe_Reddington_2019
- Evidence of being a constituted body: Evidence_This_is_Rubbish_Joe_Reddington_2019
As part of our commitment to transparency, you can also find these documents on our about us page.
Please note - as per previous corrspondence, our accounts are not yet audited.
Step 2
Application form.
- How much are you applying for in £? * We expect to fund projects for between £150,000 and £300,000 each. However, if you wish to apply for more or less than this, please state why.
- Do budget first
- What is the minimum amount of funding you can accept for this project to still go ahead? (in £) *
- Do budget first
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Have you had funding committed from elsewhere for the same project? If so, to what value? * This fund is intended to be majority or whole funding for a project. No funding from elsewhere.
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Tell us about your organisation (and any partner organisations). * (Max 200 words)
Since 2014 eQuality Time has delivered research-lead projects for social good. Its recent achievements include: winning the 2015 Inclusive Technology Prize; being named in the 2016 Nominet top 100, alongside projects like #blacklivesmatter and Well Told Story; and being part of the 2018 Comic Relief Tech for Good Cohort.
Our plan has been to build a wide portfolio of different interventions covering radically different problems, and balanced between long and short term, and based on a variety of different income streams. Our projects include creative writing camps that schools pay for directly; projects that help prisoners connect with their young children paid for from prison budgets; and the development of assitive technology for disabled people paid for from grants. Our longest running projects have moved from being grant supported to generating the majority of our running costs.
What unites our projects is a commitment to open design and transparency, as well as designing projects that inventivise end-users to work together for a common goal.
- Describe your project and tell us how it will reduce plastic pollution. Explain how it addresses one of the five focus areas listed. * _(Max 300 words) _Please visit, 'What we're looking for', to read more about the five focus areas. All shortlisted projects will be asked to submit a project plan and demonstrate that they will be in a position to commence the project in June 2019.__
The two major problems with plastic recycling in the UK are consumers aren't recycling enough (https://www.green-alliance.org.uk/resources/A%20zero%20waste%20UK.pdf), and when they do, they are doing it badly (https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/news/british-science-week-lifts-the-lid-on-recycling-misconceptions). Repeated studies have shown that domestic behaviours are most influenced by the actions of neighbours and by providing a simple reward structure. "This is rubbish" works by establishing a review and reward system locally. Personal reports from our staff help people understand their own recycling choices better, and follow up visits give an incentive to improve. By giving out 'reward' stickers for residents to put on their bins and by using a staggered visiting schedule over an area, we can promote a level of competitiveness within an area and thus get more people to make long term behavioural changes. Alongside campaigns in local schools to raise awareness and inspire children, this creates impactful behaviour change that is rooted in well-established research that has been applied successfully in other areas such as reducing heating costs. ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5305895_Normative_Social_Influence_Is_Underdetected)
- Tell us why the individuals on the project team and your organisation are the best to deliver this project, including your track record for effective project management. * (Max 300 words).
eQuality Time has recent experience of managing grant-funded projects - most recently, £48,500 from Comic Relief, and £62,000 from Nesta. eQuality Time has a mix of restricted and unrestricted funding and as projects mature and become sustainable there is an increase in earned income. Our licencing of IP to Keele University has produced £15,000 unrestricted income in the last year and we expect to continue. Our trustees have significant experience in recycling and environmental management: Seb Junemann is an energy researcher at UCL with an interest in socio-technical research in domestic buildings. He previously worked for NatCen as Research Director of the Energy and Environment team. Tess Reddington founded and run Phil The Box, a recycling company, in 2011, and has extensive experience working with local authorities on recycling projects. At the same time our COO Dr Joseph Reddington has proven expertise in delivering projects for long term behavioural change.
From a finance perspective, eQuality Time's COO is a member of ACCA and is currently completing a chartered accountancy qualification. eQuality Time's accountant (TLL) has specialist knowledge of the third sector. Our accounts are prepared in Quickbooks and all expenditure decisions are made at committee meetings and all payments require two signatories. Our Delegated Authority policy states that purchases over the value of £1,500 require two quotations to be obtained to ensure value for money. Source documents for all transactions are retained. Income and expenditure are allocated to a budget heading and to a fund to ensure accounting separation. Bank reconciliations are prepared monthly. Overhead costs are budgeted for annually and we aim to ensure all projects achieve 'full cost recovery’.
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What impact will your project have on plastic pollution in the short medium and/ or long term? Tell us what your outcomes and indicators of success will be. * (Max 300 word) • A greater volume of recycling is received by the local authority in our target area. • The recycling that the local authority receives is of a higher grade, and the grade of recycling remains high six months later. • The project is conducted in a way that is scientifically rigorous enough to affect public policy. Our indicators of success are: For the outcome: “A greater volume of recycling is received by the local authority in our target area” our indicators of success are “The average total weight of recycling in our follow up visits to a property is significantly higher than the average total weight of recycling in our initial visit to a property.” For the outcome: “The recycling that the local authority receives is of a higher grade, and that the grade of recycling remains high six months later,” the indicator of success is “the average grade (given by our staff) of a property’s recycling is higher on the second visit than on the first, and the grade of recycling given on a final six month visit is closer to the second visit than the first.” For the outcome: “The project is conducted in a way that is scientifically rigorous enough to affect public policy,” the indicator of success is “Publication of findings in a peer reviewed academic outlet that can be disseminated to local authorities and funders.”
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Tell us about any wider social or environmental benefits your project is likely to bring. * (Max 200 words).
In the wider context, our project will improve all recycling, not just plastic. Moreover, its competitive element will engage people who would not normally be sympathetic with environmental issues to start making positive contributions. Repeated research shows that when an individual starts acting as if they have a particular set of beliefs, they begin to also hold those beliefs. By structuring this project in this way, we have a chance to reach the most reluctant residents and improve their behaviour.
- How will you ensure that the project creates a legacy, and continues to have impact beyond the funded year of the project? * (Max 300 words).
Our project design is entirely focused on the long term maintenance of an immediate change for beyond the project. Our key outcome is "“The recycling that the local authority receives is of a higher grade, and that the grade of recycling remains high six months later,” and our indicators are designed so that it's the long term change we are measuring. We've been careful to base this project design on research which looks at long term behavioural change and, as an example, we have even gone to the extent of checking the rate at which people change the contents of their weekly shop to see if this would affect the reports we should give them.
- How will you share the learnings, outputs and results widely? * (Max 300 words).
Firstly we disseminate to other third sector organisations: “This is what we did, this are the results, this is how you would do the same”. Our staff and trustees regularly present at venues ranging from TEDx events to Tech for Good conferences. Secondly, we disseminate academically. The COO Dr Joseph Reddington is a former academic and continues to work with contacts to publish the results of eQuality Time projects in a scientifically rigorous way. Being able to both draw from current research, and design projects in such a way that their results are clear, is a key strength of eQuality Time as an organisation. In particular, our trustee Seb Junemann is an academic researcher working directly on the topic of socio-technical research in domestic buildings – this project utilises his strengths and he worked with us to design it effectively. This academic output leads into the third strand – public policy. By providing clearly written briefings that are backed up by peer reviewed data, we can be more influential over local authority policy than many other organisations. We hope to be able to make the case to the local authority that it is cost effective to run this sort of project because the value of the recycling that is collected is raised so significantly over the long term.
- Provide a budget showing how you would spend the grant money applied for. *
Done.
joereddington
We have a new project This is rubbish. We'd like to apply to this funding scheme with it.
I missed the initial deadline, but noticed it was still open and have confirmed by phone that I have a little more time. Not much more but...