The team behind Innate Needs
Our team has a background in software and website design. We were looking for ways that our particular skills could benefit the local community when we stumbled upon something we felt was a startling but understandable gap in provision:
In the UK, there is no single resource listing help and support services for people living in poverty
Every charity and organisation does their best to signpost their own services, but nobody has ever managed to map out all these acts of kindness. We thought such a map could be very useful to people who are looking for a helping hand.
So we built the Innate Needs map
We made time to meet representatives from the homeless community and speak with shoppers in a local social supermarket to establish which kinds of support we should be listing.
What was useful to them? How far could they travel to seek support? What opportunities had they missed out on simply because they were not aware of provision in the local area?
The answers to these questions and more informed our process for structuring the layout and content of the Innate Needs map.
We have devoted thousands of hours of development time into filling a database with support services for people living in poverty, and building a smoothly navigable map that will display all that data in a simple-to-use interface.
Explore the mapOur goals
as online web
application
We launched the Innate Needs map with around 10,000 locations listed. We estimate that there may be five times that number so it's a work in progress to keep our map up to date.
service
providers
As our database expands and the number of useful pins in the map increases, we’ll be chatting to the service providers themselves about how they might put our map to use.
to potential
user base
The food bank charity Trussell estimates that 9.4 million UK residents are facing hunger and hardship. We want them all to see our map and know that there is help nearby.
AI
We’ve got big plans to incorporate machine learning algorithms into our system. These will help us keep on top of the mammoth task of updating the database.
Android and iOS
apps
App versions of our map are a logical next step - taking advantage of smartphone features such as location information and assistant integration.
installations in key
user locations
This is a feature our test groups were keen to see. Interactive screens showing the Innate Needs map installed in public locations so people could explore nearby options.
Community Interest Company FAQs
A CIC is a class of private limited business where profits are not distributed between shareholders, instead they are invested in pursuing a social purpose.
CICs were introduced by the government in 2005. Unlike other businesses (that may choose to give a percentage of profits to charity) our whole existence is dedicated to generating money from our products and services and spending it for the benefit of people living in poverty.
Innate Needs CIC is a non-profit but it is not a registered charity. We want to reassure potential partners that a Community Interest Company is a legitimate and fully regulated alternative to a charity.
Both are entities that can generate income but not profit. A charity must be run in the public interest by an unpaid board of trustees. A Community Interest Company like Innate Needs CIC works for the more broadly defined ‘community interest’ and is free to use business solutions to achieve a public good without handing over control for the direction of the company to volunteers.
We are overseen by the CIC Regulator and have to prove that any profits are used for the stated purpose in order to retain this classification.