About Open Ideas

Open Ideas is a community space where ideas for social good find the people and resources they need to happen. Whether you have a half-formed thought or a fully developed concept, this is a place to share it openly.

We believe that the best ideas for making the world better often come from people who don't have the platforms or resources to pursue them alone. Open Ideas connects those ideas with collaborators, expertise, and community funding.

Where it came from

Open Ideas grew out of a simple experiment by Tom Watson. Inspired by the idea that the best ideas are communally owned — formed by experiences and conversations, and better when shared openly — he offered £500 to one person willing to spend a dedicated day exploring a concept with broader social value. People submitted brief idea outlines, published anonymously on the site, and the winning idea was shared publicly with no strings attached.

That experiment proved something: people have ideas for making the world better but rarely have the time, platform, or resources to develop them. What started as a one-off has evolved into this platform — a place where ideas can be shared openly, found by the right people, and supported by the community. You can read the original thinking at tomcw.xyz/open-ideas. Open Ideas is now developed through The Good Ship.

How it works

1. Share an idea — use our conversational capture or a simple form
2. Connect — our system surfaces related ideas and people with matching skills
3. Explore — browse and search ideas by theme, status, or meaning
4. Fund — contribute to the community pot and vote on which ideas receive support

The Open Ideas Fund

The fund works in rounds. Community members contribute what they can — there's no minimum. When a round closes, everyone who contributed gets to vote on which nominated ideas receive a share of the pot. It's participatory grantmaking at its simplest.