AN OPEN LETTER TO FUNDERS AND SUPPORTERS OF INNOVATION Dear Funders (and other supporters of innovation) Its just not

working out. The way that you provide support for innovation isnt working for you, or for us. We dont like the bureaucratic processes, high organisational requirements and over-specified funding calls - and we are sure that you dont like administering them either. The financial and social crisis is making reform and agile innovation even more important, but processes are still slow. Wed like to find a better way to get support and resources to innovators who can make change happen, a way thats less bureaucratic but weeds out bad ideas by letting them fail quickly and cheaply. We know its a bit self-interested, because most of the people who signed this letter are innovators themselves we have collaboratively drafted it, starting at the Edgecamp/Edgeryders unconference in Strasbourg1 and online since then. However, we think change is in your interests too, because you have complex
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More about Edgeryders is at http://edgeryders.ppa.coe.int/ if youre wondering what it is.

social goals you want to meet, but you arent working in ways that create complex solutions. So, we want to have a proper conversation with you about resourcing innovation differently. Here are some ideas to start with: Fund networked people, not organisations None of the social problems that we face can be solved by single solutions, so we should start to focus on building up networks of ideas and initiatives (old and new). The sorts of successful innovation network we should emulate include: Las Indias, Open Source Ecology, and the Arduino Community. Look for ideas that have already got community support We think crowdfunding has potential to be expanded. Crowdfunding demonstrates that an idea has community support before it even starts. We could work on a matched crowdfunding platform for innovation. Like the Unlimited programme in the UK, Goteo in Spain or CrowdCulture in Sweden, innovators could propose an idea and get pledges of cash or in-kind support from the community that its intended to benefit, and then those contributions could be matched or increased by your resources.

Give people time to think, not money to spend Lots of innovators have to take temporary work to fund their lives while they develop their ideas, but finding temporary work is timeconsuming. Rather than providing cash for spending, funders could support peoples living expenses for a certain period of time - like a bursary or a sabbatical from a university. This is already happening with one project run by Alsace Digitale and is also the logic behind the successful Ashoka.org programmes on social entrepreneurship. Tell us what you need, and support us as you see solutions evolve Challenge-driven funding models encourage the creation of solutions that actually work. Small grants could be given to a number of applicants to enable them to develop advanced prototypes, and following waves of funding would only be available for the most promising ones. This kind of create-then-fund mechanism makes money follow results, not the opposite, crowding away the experts in proposal-writing and attracting the innovative doers.

Think whole-system Find organisations that can lead local action that has positive impacts across multiple priorities, and try to avoid focusing on specific outputs. Focusing on outputs presumes that your funding priority can be severed from the rest of the communitys actions, and that you truly know the situation on the ground. It cant and you don't - but local community organisations often do. Find ways to receive as well as produce information, and dont assume best practice in one community is applicable to another - the fine details matter. Support places where innovation and connection can happen Wed like to see funding for a network of simple, cheap spaces where innovation can happen, and then well put regular meetups and events in them. We dont mean shiny well-staffed co-working spaces, just a simple space with good wifi that can be used for regular events. Kultwerk West in Hamburg is a good example of the space we mean, and Third Thursday in Brighton the sort of event. If there were a Kultwerk in every big city, wed know where to make connections into local innovators.2

Other examples of similar networks are Nomadbase and the Leipzig Project

Interoperability and collaboration as the default We want to create tools that work with each other, and where collaboration is the default setting. We take inspiration from wellknown initiatives such as the Open Knowledge Foundation and Free Software Foundation, but also less famous collectives like Riseup providing autonomous secure services for over 4m people and working closely with UNICEF, and Unhosted - developing open technologies addressing issues of web monopolies and with support of NLnet and TERENA started providing RemoteStorage based services to universities in Europe.3 Developments in the field of distributed social networking and linked data have started maturing, and offer solutions for overcoming not only technical obstacles but also many linguistic and cultural barriers. Participants in institutions like DERI or AKSW (both funded by the EUs FP7) with their infrastructure could dedicate even more focus to support development of distributed collaboration and sharing tools. With broad and diverse support for such collaborations we could expect development of more projects supporting civic

RemoteStorage holds your personal profile data, and allows you to manage permissions for accessing different parts of your personal data. It means you dont have to set up a new profile everytime you want to try a service, lowering thresholds to entry, and encouraging services that dont think their sustainability comes from locking you into their system.

involvement like in case of Code for America - sometimes referred to as a peace corps for geeks. Conclusion We dont think these ideas are the answer, but we think they are different aspects of the answer: ways of looking at problems that emphasise openness, collaboration, whole-system thinking and trusting, productive collaboration. We think you will want to have a conversation about resourcing innovation differently as well. Were ready, online and in person, when you are. We hope to hear from you soon.4

Signed
The Edgeryders and Edgecampers Anthony Zacharzewski - The Democratic Society (UK)

Pedro Prieto-Martn - Asociacin Ciudades Kyosei (ES) Nadia EL-Imam - Edgeryders (BE), @Ladyniasan
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The letters editor can be contacted at ajz10@demsoc.org

Arthur Doohan (IE) Lyne Robichaud (Quebec, Canada) Ola Mller - Idea Society (SE) elf Pavlik - hackers4peace (stateless nomad) Maxime Lathuilire - OuiShare / Ars Industrialis (FR) Nicolas Hel (FR) Eimhin David Shortt

and other contributors who did not want to be named.