More about taking part
Want to help tackle issues in our local communities, from loneliness to litter, air quality to access to education for all? Team up with students and staff from across King’s and local charities to co-create lasting solutions to the challenges faced by our neighbouring communities.
As part of King’s Civic Challenge, you’ll join a team with one of our partner charities. Together you’ll take part in training to generate and refine your ideas, before pitching to a panel of judges for the chance to win funding to get your project off the ground. King’s Civic Challenge is a chance to develop your skills in communication, project planning, budgeting and evaluation and public speaking. You’ll meet people from across the university and our local communities, and most importantly, be part of something that could make a real difference to people’s lives in London.
If you take part in the King’s Experience Award, your participation in King’s Civic Challenge can appear on your Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR) which you receive at the end of your degree as a record of your volunteering experience.
Watch this recording of a session from Welcome to King’s 2020 to find out how you could make a local difference through King’s Civic Challenge. You’ll hear from King’s students and our partner charities who joined together to develop creative solutions to issues in our local communities, from reducing loneliness to empowering young people through theatre.
Are your communities facing an issue that King’s can help you explore? Would your charity benefit from new perspectives, training for your staff and recognition for your work? King’s is looking for charities based or working in our home boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster to take part in King’s Civic Challenge 2020/21.
King’s Civic Challenge offers the chance to join a team of King’s students and staff to explore an issue relevant to the communities you work with. Together you’ll take part in training and workshops led by sector experts to generate and refine an idea that has real social impact. At the end of the process, all charities can receive ongoing support from King’s, but teams also have the chance win £5,000 in seed funding to make their idea a reality.
As well as an incubator for local ideas with social impact, King’s Civic Challenge is an opportunity for your charity to draw on the diverse perspectives of the King’s community, develop the skills of your staff, and network with other charities and local community organisations.
As a small charity we often don’t have time to focus on doing in-depth research before building new projects as we are heavily focused on delivery. We feel like we were able to do a thorough evaluation of the situation and design a truly bespoke and impactful project.
– Charity partner for King’s Civic Challenge 2019/20
The Challenge provided the space for us to critically assess our current offering and generate new ideas and ways of thinking.– Charity partner for King’s Civic Challenge 2019/20
With our home boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster, we’ve identified four areas where we can do even more to serve, support and sustain our local communities. The projects we will support through King’s Civic Challenge align with these mutual priorities.
Click the links to see how King’s is working with our local communities on:
- Education & attainment: ensuring everyone can aim high and reach their full potential
- Business & enterprise: supporting the development of thriving local economies while creating opportunities for all
- Community resilience: strengthening communities and helping them develop solutions to the problems they face
- Health & wellbeing: improving the health and wellbeing of our communities through local partnership.
King’s Civic Challenge empowers students and staff to team up with local charities and co-create lasting solutions to the challenges our neighbouring communities face. In this film, partners from across King’s and our home boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster explore projects already under way as well as areas that need further work.