Social Shifters

Choosing the right route

• A youth-led project already up and running: the Global Innovation Challenge is the route it is built for.
• Still testing an idea and want structured learning: Steps to Startup is a paid online course on acting on a social or environmental issue.

How applications work

• The challenge is entered online, with no travel and no entry fee.
• The 2026 round is closed. Its submission deadline was 31 August 2026 at 5pm UTC.
• The homepage may still show an earlier round. Use the challenge page for current dates.
• The challenge documents word two rules differently: where entrants can be based, and when age is counted. Read the guidelines before you enter.
• Most pages give hello@socialshifters.co as the contact. The challenge page gives challenge@socialshifters.com, on a different domain. Check which address the current round uses.

How selection works

• Submissions are reviewed and scored by a global panel of over 3,000 volunteer judges.
• Grant winners are announced in December.

Social Shifters is an international charity that helps young people take action on social and environmental problems. It operates as a non-profit company and a regulated Scottish charity, and it runs its programmes online. It runs the Global Innovation Challenge, a grant competition for youth-led projects, and sells Steps to Startup, a paid online course.

How programmes work

The Global Innovation Challenge is conducted entirely online, with no need to travel, and it charges no entry fee. Submissions are reviewed and scored by a global panel of more than 3,000 volunteer judges. Grant winners are announced in December.

The 2026 round is closed. Its submission deadline was 31 August 2026 at 5pm UTC. Grant awards go to selected entrants, and the organisation also advertises free founder support alongside the challenge.

Steps to Startup is a paid online course. It covers 8 courses and 33 learning modules, and buying it gives lifetime access to the content. It is designed to help people take action on the social and environmental issues they care about most.

Who can apply

The challenge is open to founders aged 18 to 30 who have clear decision-making authority over their project. The project must be youth-led and already up and running, delivering social or environmental impact in communities.

Two of the challenge documents word two rules differently. Its question sheet says individuals from most countries are welcome, while its guidelines say entrants and projects can be located anywhere in the world. The question sheet counts age at submission, while the guidelines count it on or before the deadline. Read the guidelines before entering.

Steps to Startup has no application. Anyone can buy it.

Scale

These are the organisation's own figures and have not been audited. In 2025 it reported 1,325 startup projects found and funded through its innovation challenges. Its impact page gives 2,851 solutions developed through the challenge, and its partner page gives 2,840 or more youth-led solutions. Those are different measures, and its pages do not reconcile them.

In 2025 it also reported 3 million young people reached through its digital campaigns in 122 countries. Its homepage gives 20,000 community members and 144 countries represented, and its partner page says its sustainability ecosystem spans 150 or more countries. The country counts differ, so treat them as approximate.

Partners

Since 2022 the organisation has worked with Amazon on global disaster relief. That work includes a co-designed Global Refugee Challenge and an employee volunteering programme.

Locations

Social Shifters operates as a non-profit company and regulated Scottish charity. Its site does not give a street address.