One of the ways Beam helps people is by co-creating a personalised budget that removes all barriers to their career and housing goal. Not everyone will need a campaign, but if they do, we then list this itemised budget on the person’s campaign page. Examples include:

Employment campaigns

Housing campaigns

When we started Beam, we always wanted it to be flexible in this way. We start by discussing their desired job and housing outcomes - then use the support of the crowd to resource it.

But there are some limits to this flexibility! We don’t fund training outside the UK or anything that includes prohibited areas such as firearms and weapons, pornography, tobacco, or political and religious campaigning.

One of our core values is 'we make an impact'. For this reason, although we check we’re not funding anything that’s readily available for free, we typically don’t apply to funding pots that may be very small, slow to access, or uncertain. 

Instead, we try to help people into work and housing as quickly as possible. Then, when people are stable in work, they can opt in to pay back the money at a rate of their choosing to other people using Beam.