Shared facilities
Markets, halls, clinics, schools, sanitation blocks.
Focus — Housing, Materials & the Built Environment — Community infrastructure
COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE
IDEAS WE SUPPORT.
World Seed Fund supports people whose ideas improve the shared facilities a community depends on for the residents and traders who use the facility.
Why this area
COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE
IN CONTEXT.
Markets, clinics, schools, drainage, and meeting spaces determine whether a settlement works. Ideas qualify when someone is responsible for the structure after it opens.
Scope of the area
WHAT THIS AREA
INCLUDES.
Illustrations of scope, not a fixed list. If your idea belongs here but is not described below, introduce it anyway.
Drainage & streets
The public works that keep a settlement usable.
Participatory planning
Communities deciding what gets built.
Operation
Who cleans, repairs, and funds it afterwards.
Criteria to qualify
WHAT A COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE
IDEA MUST SHOW.
All five criteria apply. An idea does not need to be complete or proven — it needs to be specific enough that we can judge it, and grounded enough that a next step is possible.
A defined problem, in a defined place
We need to understand exactly who is affected, where, and how they cope today. General statements about a global challenge are not enough to qualify.
- Names the place, community, or system where the shared facilities a community depends on fall short.
- States the situation today in plain terms — usage, condition after a year, or operating cost covered.
- Explains what the residents and traders who use the facility do now, and what it costs them.
Human insight behind the idea
The idea should come from knowledge of the situation — technical, scientific, operational, cultural, or lived — rather than from an assumption about it.
- Draws on direct knowledge of the shared facilities a community depends on in that place.
- Accounts for why earlier community facility projects did not hold here.
- Was shaped with the residents and traders who use the facility, not only for them.
A credible next step
There must be a specific thing that can be attempted next, at a scale that can be observed honestly, with a stated way of judging whether it worked.
- A defined pilot with a stated size — facilities built or upgraded, and people served.
- A stated measure of success — usage, condition after a year, or operating cost covered.
- A timeframe within which the result can be judged honestly.
Value for people and place
The benefit should be meaningful to the community or system the idea serves, and describable in terms they would recognise.
- Improves access to services, trade, and public life for the residents and traders who use the facility.
- The benefit is described in words the community itself would use.
- Does not shift cost, risk, or harm onto neighbouring people or systems.
A path to keep working
Ideas qualify when someone can plausibly own, operate, fund, and repair the result after the first phase of support ends.
- A named local authority, management committee, or community trust able to carry the work after the first phase.
- Running costs, materials, and skills obtainable near the work.
- Ownership, permission, or agreement that lets the work continue.
Evidence & boundaries
WHAT HELPS,
AND WHAT DOES NOT.
Evidence can be modest. A careful account of a small trial is worth more than a projection.
Evidence we look for
- Any observation, record, or measurement of the shared facilities a community depends on in that place.
- Costs, materials, or time recorded from a small trial, however modest.
- Notes, letters, or agreements from the residents and traders who use the facility or the local authority, management committee, or community trust.
Usually outside this area
- Broad proposals about community infrastructure with no named place and no named people.
- Equipment or funding requests with no operator and no running cost.
- Work that transfers cost, risk, or harm to neighbouring people or systems.
Submit an idea
INTRODUCE YOUR
COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE IDEA.
There is no application window and no required format. Answer these four questions in your own words and we will read them.
Who is affected, where, and how do they manage today?
What do you know about the shared facilities a community depends on that others working on it may not?
What could you attempt next, and how would you judge whether it worked?
Who continues the work afterwards, and what keeps it running?
Human potential is everywhere. Opportunity should be too.