UK based NESTA together with the Office of Civil Society has announced an open call for ideas to the £10m Innovation in Giving Fund.

The purpose of this initiative is to harness proposals with the potential to deliver a significant increase in the giving and exchange of time, assets, skills, resources and money. 

The fund is open to proposals from all sources and sectors and all types of organisations – communities, charities large and small, social entrepreneurs, businesses, academia, public services or other organisations (both for-profit and non-for-profit).

For more information and applying visit their site.

Inspiring and insightful talk by Hilary Austen about the nature of the relationship between the innovation agents and communities and how they interact.

This is Service Design Thinking.« illustrates the young multi-disciplinary approach of designing services. Both layout and content are far beyond a mere textbook on a viral buzzword. The book itself is based on a Design Thinking process, including the knowledge and passion of the Service Design community and related fields.

"From Sketchbook to Spreadsheet" is the title of the first global conference onservice design to take place in San Francisco in October 20th & 21st 2011.

For more information visit the Service Design Network site and their registration page.

Danish based INDEX is a non-profit organisation established in 2001 that works worlwide applying design principles to improve people's lives around the globe. They focus on large-scale public events, education, labs and communication. Some of their existent projects cover areas such as HIV/AIDS, scarcity of potable water and carbon emissions.

For more information visit their site.

Co-written by Robin Murray, Julie Caulier-Grice and Geoff Mulgan this publication is part of the Social Innovator Series : Ways to Design, Develop and Grow Social Innovation.

A major collaboration between NESTA and The Young Foundation, it discusses the process of social innovation and the ways of supporting it in the social sector and different economies.

For more information visit the Social Innovator site.