Get inspired
Make London is built on the successes of two of the Mayor’s previous initiatives: Crowdfund London and Culture Seeds – which have helped to support more than 350 community-led projects.
To date, we've seen some fantastic ideas including:
- new community spaces, resources, gardens and even a suburban farm for everyone to enjoy;
- the revival of a famous market, creation of a teenage market and a new night market for underemployed people to develop new skills;
- the creative re-imagining of unloved spaces as workshops and a pay-as-you-feel community kitchens supporting local enterprise;
- ambitious plans to construct elevated parks and a self-build community centre in Lewisham;
- artistic projects such as local art walks for children and young people, painting and visual art workshops for isolated women, and new community choirs bringing people from different backgrounds together;
- public art installations and events that celebrate distinctive places.
All have added something new to an area and aspired to benefit their wider community.
Take a look at the map below for more information on previous Crowdfund London campaigns and visit our Culture Seeds pages to get inspiration from small-scale creative projects.
Map of Crowdfund London projects
A village hall for Clapton Common (Hackney)
Re-imagining a dilapidated and vacant toilet block on Clapton Common into a village hall and community kitchen to provide a shared resource for local people. The cafe will provide food education and cookery skills, and an apprenticeship scheme for training. Communal meals will promote local cohesion across faith groups.
The Mayor Pledged: £25,000
Bee-Spoke learning centre (Tower Hamlets)
A project to build up the capacity of a volunteer urban beekeeping project in Poplar, allowing more local residents the opportunity to learn and participate in beekeeping and honey extraction. The project aims to help local 16-25 year olds develop confidence experience and new practical skills.
The Mayor Pledged: £20,000
Bridges to the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs (Bromley)
A project to install a permanent bridge to the Grade 1 listed Dinosaur models on an island in Crystal Palace Park. The bridge would enable easier access to the models for educational and event purposes, as well as to drive momentum and awareness to raise the money to fully restore the dinosaurs.
The Mayor Pledged: £30,000
Build Up Hackney (Hackney)
A proposal for a new public space in Hackney, to be designed and built by local young people. The project aims to reconnect young people with development happening in the area whilst learning key creative and construction skills.
The Mayor Pledged: £30,000
Community Kitchen For Twickenham (Richmond Upon Thames)
A new community kitchen in a historic building that will bring local people together to meet, share meals and reduce food waste by utilising surplus from local supermarkets and retailers.
The Mayor Pledged: £40,000
Creating a brand new school football pitch (Croydon)
London’s oldest football club and a local school coming together to create a shared resource for the wider community. The project will create new accessible and affordable opportunities to play sport and outreach will bring the wider community together around the new facility.
The Mayor Pledged: £2,000
D-Lab East (Newham)
A creative, open access place of work and training located in the Olympic Park East Village. The hub will provide affordable space and equipment to grow digital skills and support the creative economy.
The Mayor Pledged: £30,000
Dream Garden SW11 (Wandsworth)
A learning garden and community resource that aims to make an under-used school site more accessible to a wide range of local people. The space will be designed and built with school children and community volunteers.
The Mayor Pledged: £30,000
Friends Rejuvenation of Gipsy Hill (Lambeth)
Local clean up and planting of neglected green spaces near Gispy Hill railway station by a newly formed community group.
The Mayor Pledged: £2,500
Illuminate Rotherhithe! (Southwark)
A feasibility study into a lighting scheme to illuminate six historic buildings in Rotherhithe to commemorate Rotherhithe’s key role in the story of the Mayflower.
The Mayor Pledged: £20,000
Keep London’s legendary Bubble Club OPEN (Tower Hamlets)
A series of events and the development of a sustainable business plan to secure the long-term future of the Bubble Club: a vibrant, creative, fun night club run by and for people with learning disabilities and those without.
The Mayor Pledged: £13,500
Mother House: studios with childcare (Lewisham)
A pioneering new model to combine affordable studio space for professional arts practice with a children's area, where a dedicated team facilitates in-house daily activities. The facility will also include a gallery space for exhibitions and public programme to engage the wider community.
The Mayor Pledged: £22,500
Revivify Manor Park! Phase 1 (Kingston Upon Thames)
Local engagement, design and feasibility work to re-imagine a public park with a bold, inclusive and community-led vision for the future.
The Mayor Pledged: £15,000
Seymour Place Community Hub (City of Westminster)
Feasibility and local engagement work for the restoration of a heritage building to better utilise space and create new opportunities for flexible community use. The project will empower homeless people to rebuild their lives and participate in the wider community by placing them at the heart of a new social hub and community outreach strategy.
The Mayor Pledged: £32,500
A Green Space at St Mary's Open to All (Hounslow)
The project intends to experiment with green infrastructure to bring back to life the unused playground of St Mary's Catholic Primary school, situated along the M4 in Chiswick. This project would provide education opportunities, help mitigate local pollution and open-up the playground to the wider community during the weekends to host markets and other social events.
The Mayor Pledged: £32,000
TATI: Brick Lane community café (Tower Hamlets)
Design and feasibility work for the proposed Bangla training kitchen and cafe on Brick Lane. The cafe will look to train and empower Bangladeshi and other women to be able to start up their own food enterprises, and provide an authentic Bangla dining experience for the public.
The Mayor Pledged: £7,500
The Calthorpe Living Lab (Camden)
The project looks to address the urgent environmental pressures that affect everyone by creating a solar powered community shop to sell products made by local entrepreneurs and artisans. Workshops will promote upcycling; food preserving; raw vegan and vegetarian cooking; urban food growing, and plant propagation, designed to help people reduce waste, reuse and recycle.
The Mayor Pledged: £6,000
The Farm Café and Workshops (Barnet)
Transforming the historic Clitterhouse Farm outbuildings back into a productive and sustainable multi-use space for the community and local creative enterprise.
The Mayor Pledged: £50,000
The Flower Bank Hub (Barnet)
A proposal to transform a derelict shop in Barnet into a community florist and learning centre where otherwise wasted flowers will be available to those who can least afford them. The project aims to run workshops with local vulnerable groups and promote zero-waste management.
The Mayor Pledged: £30,000
Tottenham Cafe Connect Goes Outdoors! (Haringey)
Transforming a disused bowling green into a flexible and inclusive outdoor space to expand a community hub in Tottenham. New power and shelter will allow the space to be used year round and support a range of new activities that bring local people together.
The Mayor Pledged: £12,500
Union Chapel - Sunday School Stories (Islington)
Repairing the roof of Grade 1 listed heritage building and local asset to unlock the use of an inaccessible hall, creating a new 200 capacity community space for everyone to come together around learning activities.
The Mayor Pledged: £37,500
Urban Room Old Kent Road (Southwark)
A dedicated, independent space where residents, businesses, researchers, planners, the council, developers and others can come together to debate and plan the future Old Kent Road ahead of the Bakerloo Line extension and associated regeneration plans.
The Mayor Pledged: £15,000
Wolves Lane - Wood Green's mini-Eden (Haringey)
A project to add a sustainable, renewable energy source to support the Wolves Lane palm house and cafe. This will allow the community to better use this resource in the winter and create new opportunities for volunteering.
The Mayor Pledged: £7,500
Multi-media music space 4 young people (Tower Hamlets)
A space for at-risk young people to develop confidence and social skills through music and creative arts in a refurbished space to call their own.
The Mayor pledged: £25,000
The Lexi Hub Appeal (Brent)
The expansion of the UK’s first social enterprise cinema. Volunteer-run, the cinema is a wider piece of social infrastructure supporting social integration through a varied programme and open approach. This project will expand the hub and add an additional screen double the community programme and ensure more sustainable revenues.
The Mayor pledged: £50,000
Wild About Wildlife: Restoration Project (Southwark)
Supporting the restoration of a unique community space run by 40 young farmers aged 8-13. They spend weekends looking after animals, growing and cooking food and conserving a wildlife habitat, right in the heart of London.
The Mayor pledged: £20,000
Streatham Community Woodland Project (Lambeth)
To protect a woodland habitat for future generations. A new trail pathway will reduce erosion, designate protected areas and increase accessibility to promote local use. Measures including new insect hotels will encourage more wildlife to the area. The activity programme aims to build skills, knowledge and a sense of belonging in the local community.
The Mayor pledged: £14,000
A vibrant new community space in Hackney (Hackney)
A modest TRA-led project to turn a disused ground floor commercial unit into a community space and associated events programme. This will unlock the potential of the new play-street in front with facilities to host events that bring all residents together.
The Mayor pledged: £12,000
Transform the Common Room - Roman Road (Tower Hamlets)
Transforming a temporary community structure on Roman Road into a new community learning and cultural space in partnership with local institutions. The project will provide an open, accessible and flexible space to support a variety of local uses and engagement opportunities.
The Mayor pledged: £50,000
GoVanGogh (Lambeth)
A not-for-profit vegan café committed to providing opportunities for people with learning disabilities through prominent front of house training and employment. A disused lower ground area will be refurbished to a standard that supports the training aspirations whilst expanding capacity.
The Mayor pledged: £12,500
Sowing Stitches (Barnet)
Transforming a disused off-license shop unit into a lively arts and cultural training and trading space. The project aims to attract businesses and footfall to an under-used shopping centre-come-housing estate, whilst connecting people with each other and new opportunities.
The Mayor pledged: £15,000
Walala Parade - Public Art for Leyton (Waltham Forest)
A collaboration between local arts collective and a renowned artist to create a street mural to celebrate the high street through a distinctive design developed alongside local residents and businesses.
The Mayor pledged: £25,000
New life for Community Arts, Upton Park (Newham)
Feasibility and business planning ahead of the potential wholesale renovation of a run-down community centre in the diverse Upton Park area. The project aims to create a new, valued space open to the whole community as a place to come together, share culture, promote social cohesion and support emerging creative talent.
The Mayor pledged: £40,000
LEWiSHAM School of Muralism (Lewisham)
A mural-making skill-sharing initiative in Lewisham, teaching young people the processes and artistic skills to have a positive social impact through colourful and thought-provoking public art. Works would be placed in neglected public spaces and offer opportunities to develop future local artists.
The Mayor pledged: £25,000
Save Streatham Hill Theatre: Phase 1 (Lambeth)
Community-led feasibility work and business planning to consider the future of a derelict, Grade II listed, 2,800 capacity former theatre on Streatham High Street.
The Mayor pledged: £15,000
Fashion and Creative Hub (Tower Hamlets)
Fashion Council working with a range of relevant partners to create a new Fashion & Creative hub in the heart of a residential community. The project aims to support more diverse parts of the community to engage with the wider East London Fashion District initiatives.
The Mayor pledged: £20,000
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