More funding = fewer empty buildings = more fantastic guardians = more volunteering = better world!

At Dot Dot Dot we’re absolutely delighted to have been chosen to receive a second round of funding through Nesta’s Innovation in Giving programme. The scheme – funded by the Cabinet Office – exists to support and grow innovative ideas with potential to make a big difference to the amount of time or money that people give to good causes. It is incredibly flattering to have been backed by it not once but twice.

We were one of 17 organisations chosen to join the scheme this time last year, and we used the support we received to grow our team and strengthen our operational processes to allow us to look after significantly more properties and to house more brilliant guardians.

It has been a great year for Dot Dot Dot – we have grown from a start-up to a robust and sustainable business, and it has been a joy to work with the fantastic people who’re living in our properties, and see how much effort they put into volunteering, and into contributing to a sense of community in the areas where they live.

And so it’s incredibly exciting to have been chosen as one of four organisations to receive follow-on funding within the Innovation in Giving programme, to help us increase our scale even further while making sure that we also improve quality wherever we can.

With this backing, we’re going to be able to focus on taking our service to new kinds of landlords and new geographical areas at the same time as making sure that we continue to give the landlords, guardians and communities we’re already working with what they want and need.

It’s fantastic to know that Nesta and central government believe in what we’re doing at Dot Dot Dot, and want to support us to do even more of it – with half a million long-term empty homes in the UK, and a similar amount of empty commercial space, there’s loads of space that we could be filling.

But the biggest reason why we’re excited about the future at Dot Dot Dot is the huge number of awesome people who’ll be able to do even more voluntary work with our help. We’re delighted to be backed by the Innovation in Giving fund, and we’re looking forward to using this support over the coming year to do even more and even better.