Public Funding for Factor 50 Ltd

It started with a postcard or leaflet put through a neighbour's door, offering to help. Then it grew. Across the country, people are stepping up to help those in need. We're seeing some amazing acts of care and kindness. This is not just about giving time, it's about _helping_; doing something positive for the communities we all live in. **However** These have blossomed into whatsapp and facebook groups. But none of these scale. * It's hard to see which streets are covered and which ones aren't. * None of these allow us to verify the volunteers. * Or solve data protection consistently. * Or allow relatives from one side of the country to easily get in touch with the "street champions" who live next to vulnerable relatives who are a long way away. These group leaders and street champions are amazing - but are over stretched and we want to give them the tools they need. Covid-19 is moving so quickly. Frightening. We needed to move just as fast. **Who are we?** We're a diverse group of people who live around the UK, but all have a connection to Nottingham. We are doctors, health practitioners, tech and data people, community volunteers and marketers. The founding team work for Factor 50, a healthcare analytics and digital company that works with the NHS, particularly in mental health. Help My Street CIC is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. **Our principles** The things that matter to us ... Help - We're here to make volunteering, and finding volunteers, as simple as possible. Safety - We're committed to creating a safe and trusted service for volunteers and those in need. [HelpMyStreet.org][0] has been launched to help the Helpers. **How will Innovate UK funding help?** The funding that Innovate UK provides will help to make this platform truly scalable. Matching helpers with those who need help is a mini market place, and this funding will enable us to build a scalable platform that matches requests for help with those who can provide the help. [0]: https://helpmystreet-live.azurewebsites.net/ ** The extension ** As more organisations across the volunteer and healthcare sectors start to use the HelpMyStreet platform to manage their volunteering activity, we want to expand the scope of HelpMyStreet to meet a wider range of volunteering and organisational needs: 1. broadening the classes of activities that can be requested through HelpMyStreet to include, inter alia, recurring appointments/activities (e.g. a regular weekly call for an housebound elderly gentleman) and group tasks (e.g. 10 volunteers required to run a stall at a school fair) 2. increasing the ways in which organisations can communicate and interact with their volunteers so as to maximise continued volunteer engagement, as well as enabling specific organisations to recruit volunteers from those already using the HelpMyStreet platform. On top of our existing capabilities, this moves HelpMyStreet further towards becoming a "one stop shop" for recruiting and organising volunteers, and managing requests for help - whatever the scale of the organisation: from individual citizens wanting to help out; to small community-led groups; up to larger charity and healthcare organisations. By making HelpMyStreet as easy and beneficial to use (for organisations, their volunteers AND those people needing help) we can increase the number and range of volunteers and organsiations using our platform and, ultimately, get more help to those people who need it!