Spark 2010 the story so far

The 2010 Spark Challenge was launched on Monday 5th July by John Montague, CEO of The TREES Group and Nigel Kershaw, Chair of Big Issue Invest to find enterprising ideas to tackle homelessness.

Over 300 organisations expressed interest and downloaded application forms.

87 applications were received - thank you for these. They were a really good assortment of ideas from all around the country and from a mixture of small, medium and large organisations. For more information click here.

All applications were reviewed by teams from all of our partner organisations, who made recommendations to the judging panel. The judges, after many hours of deliberation, selected 14 finalists – to find out more click here.

The finalists spent September and October developing their business plans in conjunction with Spark corporate partners BT Global Services, Places for People, Price Waterhouse Coopers and Willmott Dixon. They then presented their ideas at the Spark Pitching event on 9th and 10th November. For more information click here

Following the Pitching Event Spark is investing £700K in 12 enterprises. They are all now in the implementation stage and are being supported in this by their corporate partners. For more information click here