About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

£10,000 match funding available for schools

Spring 2019 Rocket Fund campaign image

When Rocket Fund set out, we had a big idea born from a clearly identifiable gap in the market and from a genuine desire to level the playing field of opportunity for children in the UK.

Skip forward two years and we are now working with schools across the UK, with teachers, headteachers and parent-teacher associations (PTAs) to help modernise their fundraising, increase their budgets and ultimately fuel imagination in the classroom.

We're proud of our achievements over the last 24.6 lunar cycles so we thought we’d share some key points.

We’ve worked with over 300 schools

Since December 2016, we have helped schools raise a total of £220,000. That money has been raised by over 300 Rocket Fund projects, from all over the UK.

Bar chart of Rocjet Fund projects

We've supported schools across the UK

We have a good spread of schools, as shown in the map below, but are still looking to grow our reach across the UK.

A map that shows the location of all schools that have taken part in a Rocket Fund project

We’ve processed over 5,000 individual donations

Of the £220,000 raised, £35,000 was match funding and £185,000 was from individual donations. So match funding leveraged five times more money from the school's own fundraising efforts (from parents, local businesses and alumni).

Some interesting donor stats:

  • Donations ranged from £1 to £1,500 (a total 84 people donated £1)
  • The most common amount donated is £10 (1,600 people donated £10)
  • 10% of donors make up 50% of total amount raised (434 people donated over £100, six people donated over £1,000)
  • 70% donors are parents
  • 2% donors are grandparents
  • 80% of donors don't want a reward

We were shortlisted for the Bett 2019 Award: Innovator of the Year

Bett award badge

We’re having an impact on the ground

In Scotland, Hyndland primary school had a great time raising funds with Rocket Fund. They raised £4,000 with the help of a very generous local business owner and alumni.

Picture of school blog celebrating Hyndland primary

In South London, Fairlawn school raised funds to hold a whole day hackathon, an inspiring day for all involved!

Screen grab of tweet

And digital leaders up and down the country are showing us how it's done:

The future

But we are just getting started! We want to widen our reach and connect more schools with more donors. We are excited about the impact we can have on classrooms up and down the country.

Want to help?

Great, it’s easy to do. Just share our spring term match funding campaign with friends, family and your networks - anyone you know who works in a school.

Please share this on social media, in your newsletter or over a cup of tea with your neighbour.

£10,000 match funding available this term

Rocket Fund is a new way to help schools modernise their fundraising.

This term they have £250 available to the first 40 schools who raise £250!

Visit www.rocket.fund to get involved.

We're also on @RocketfundUK and Facebook.

Spring 2019 Rocket Fund campaign image
Part of
Rocket Fund

Author

Ben Gill

Ben Gill

Ben Gill

Senior Programme Manager

Ben was a Senior Programme Manager in the Innovation Lab's Education Team.

View profile
Karmel Edmonds

Karmel Edmonds

Karmel Edmonds

Programme Manager, Challenge Works

She/Her

At Challenge Works, Karmel is part of the Rapid Recovery team and leads on the innovator journey, programme delivery and communications.

View profile
Cleo Fatoorehchi

Cleo Fatoorehchi

Cleo Fatoorehchi

Operations Manager

Cleo was part of the Education team at Nesta and worked on Rocket Fund, a crowdfunding platform for schools to give children access to EdTech.

View profile