Please enter your preferred first name, the name you’d like us to call you when we contact you.

Please supply at least one contact number.

We ask for your date of birth to ensure eligibility; we unfortunately cannot support entrepreneurs under the age of 16 and we also want to ensure our awards are reaching people at all stages of life.

We ask for your National Insurance number to ensure that we can correctly link records, should you have a number of applications with us.

Whilst we recognise that there are many fantastic entrepreneurs who may not have the right to live and work in the UK, unfortunately we are only able to work with those who do.

Please select the most relevant response for how you first found out about UnLtd/our award programmes and be specific about names and organisations. This helps us track the success of our communications and our work with local partners.

Enter the name of your venture, or proposed name, if you are at idea stage.

If your venture has a website, please tell us the address.

Here we want you to tell us where in the UK your venture will be working. This could be in your local community, borough, city, or county, It could be in several locations or UK wide.

You can select up to a maximum of three sectors that most closely fit.

In your answer we want to know what your understanding of the problem is, who it affects and how. What is the scale of this problem? How deeply do you understand it? Is it a local issue, or national? Does it have a short-term or long-term impact for people or our planet? It would be helpful to back this up with some data if you have it.

You can select up to a maximum of three types of beneficiaries that most closely fit.

An award (grant) from UnLtd is funding that is not repaid, whilst there is an expectation that an investment is repaid. Our awards and current investment opportunities are on our website. You can select the 'I'm not sure' option if you don't know which option may be right for you yet.

What inspires you to address this particular social or environmental issue? What is your understanding of this issue and why is it important to you? What makes you the right person to address this issue?

Please note we are sensitive to the fact that many applicants have personal experience of the issues they are trying to address. Please do not feel pressure to share anything that may be upsetting for you, or of a sensitive nature. Any information you may choose to share will be treated sensitively and confidentially by our team.

We really value the wide range of experiences that social entrepreneurs bring to their venture, whether from their work or their personal experience.  Please state whether you have direct, indirect, or professional experience. We have explained what we mean by these terms below:

Direct experience

Someone who uses their first-hand experience of a social issue to create positive change for and with the communities and people they share those experiences with. For example:

• Someone who has been homeless and is working to improve homelessness services
• A disabled person who has set up and is running a peer-to-peer support service for other disabled people
• A person who experienced exclusion and unemployment as a young person and sets up and runs a service for young people not in training, education, or employment

Indirect experience

Someone who uses their familiarity with a social issue to create positive change for the communities and people who experience the issue first-hand. For example:

• The parent of a disabled child providing services for disabled people
• The carer of someone with dementia selling products to support people with dementia to live independently

Professional experience

Someone who uses their professional experience of an issue to create positive change for the communities and people who experience the issue first-hand. For example:

• Someone who has worked in the NHS managing care services, setting up a care provider
• A former teacher setting up a service for young people not in employment, education, or training

Of your direct, indirect, or professional experience, please select the social issues that most closely fit your experience, you can select a maximum of three.

The questions that follow will depend on the stage you select here. If you have been operating for less than a year you are eligible to apply for up to £8,000 which can be used for organisational costs not including a personal income. If you have been operating for a year or more you are eligible to apply for up to £18,000 which can be used for organisational costs, salary, or a combination of both.

Forming: I have an idea

You have an idea, and it is in the early stages of development.

I've been trading for less than one year

Your venture is established but has been trading for less than a year. By trading we mean selling goods or services, not including grants.

I've been trading for one year or more

Your venture is established and has been trading for between one and four years. By trading we mean selling goods or services, not including grants. If you select this stage, we require some financial data to support your application, details of which can be found on our financial data webpage. If you think you might need support to provide this data, please get in touch with us.

If you have been established for over four years, or had a turnover of over £250,000, you are not eligible for support through our awards. You may wish to look at our investment offer. You can find information about this on our website.

Please give us an overview of the social/environmental problem you want to solve and how you plan to go about it for example: If you are looking to tackle the disability employment gap then you may be proposing a solution which creates opportunities to support disabled people into employment.

Your response might also include:

• What kind of service or product you plan to offer
• How your product or service results in a social
• Details about the type of work you might deliver to achieve your impact and a timeline of when key activities might take place.
• The partners you might want to involve in your work (such as a local authority or NHS provider for example)
• What other resources you think that you will need – these could be physical, human and/or financial

You might have a clear idea of the difference you want to make but have not had a chance to test that your theory will work in practice. These questions are prompts to give us a sense of your plans and where UnLtd might be able to support you.

We want to understand your business model, by this we mean what products or services might you be selling to become financially sustainable which in turn will allow you to create a social impact.

Your response might also include:

• How it will be funded
• How you know your customers/service users will pay
• What’s unique about your venture
• How it tackles a problem for people that existing products or services don’t

It may be that you have developed a product or service offering but you aren’t sure how best to get in front of your target customer, or maybe you have questions around your pricing structure. These are just examples but please do indicate if you have identified areas where in which you would like some support from us.

Tell us how many unique individuals your venture has directly made a positive difference for – by unique individuals we mean that if a person has, for example, attended three workshops they should only count once. If your venture is new or early stage and has not yet benefitted people, please enter ‘0’.

Tell us how many unique individuals your venture will benefit in the next 12 months, and as above, one individual should only count once in your total.

We would like to understand how your work will make a positive difference to people, and whether you are working with them over a short period of time or through more regular interactions.

Your response might include:

• How people will benefit from the activities/products/services the venture will provide
• How often you anticipate people will engage with your work (for example once in a workshop, or through daily or weekly interactions)

We can consider requests from £500 to £8,000 for early-stage ventures.

We would like to understand what your venture costs are. When planning your budget please bear in mind that an UnLtd award can only be used to cover costs after the approval date. Any costs you incur before this date cannot count towards award expenditure. We may discuss your budget with you in more detail as your application progresses.

We can consider all costs relating to establishing or growing a venture which could include things like:

• Company formation and registration fees
• Insurance
• Enhanced disclosures and other safeguarding costs
• IT costs
• Printing, advertising, and publicity
• Venue and equipment hire
• Materials
• Travel and subsistence
• Volunteer expenses
• Mentoring and support
• Sessional and freelance costs

Please note that the following expenses will not be considered:

• At this stage we cannot cover living costs, paying yourself or staff on your payroll
• Funding activities outside the law, against public policy or anything that fosters ethnic, religious, or commercial disharmony
• Funding to undertake formal qualifications (but can be used to provide short term training if critical to success of the venture)
• Funding to employ others to undertake the bulk of the award activity

We use the definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010. We highly value lived experience and equality of opportunity and you should feel confident to share without fear of discrimination or bias. Our commitments to inclusion can be found on our website and are monitored.

Giving us as much information as you are comfortable with will allow our teams to better support you through our assessment process. This can include adjusting our panel process or identifying support such as interpreters. Please specify in what ways we can ensure our process is accessible to you.