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D&AD Impact

D&AD Impact celebrates creative ideas that are driving the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

It also helps creative ideas grow, by providing mentoring, training, visibility and funding to work that shows potential. Shortlisted in the Future Impact category? Apply for a development grant of up to £25,000 to develop your idea.

The D&AD Impact Award

You can submit your work into one of three categories.

The Impact category is for work that’s been commercially released. This includes campaign communications, product and service designs, fundraising and business initiatives, community alliances and regeneration projects. You must demonstrate behavioural, environmental, social or policy change that’s happened as a direct result of the work. Win a coveted Wood, Graphite, White or Black Pencil; your name in the D&AD Annual; and four trees planted in your name as part of our partnership with Everclime.

The Future Impact category is for early-stage designs and initiatives, recognised for their potential to drive change. This includes prototypes, beta designs, MVPs, and initiatives that have yet to be launched, but can demonstrate proof of concept. Shortlisted Entrants will receive a place on the D&AD Impact Programme and the opportunity to apply for a grant from the D&AD Impact Fund, worth £25,000. Win a coveted Future Impact Pencil; your name in the D&AD Annual; and four trees planted in your name as part of our partnership with Everclime.

The Sustained Impact category seeks to recognise that has resulted in ongoing behavioural, environmental, social or policy change that are benefiting society. This includes campaign films, press adverts, posters, audio spots and brand activations created for real and virtual worlds. Win a coveted Wood, Graphite, White or Black Pencil; your name in the D&AD Annual; and four trees planted in your name as part of our partnership with Everclime.

The D&AD Impact Programme

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Information

  • What is it?

    The D&AD Impact Programme is a 12-month package of mentorship, training and peer support that’s designed to support project owners with the ideation, launch and early growth of their work. It’s available to anyone shortlisted in the Future Impact category.

    A Future Impact cohort typically includes individuals, organisations and teams working on prototypes, MVPs, projects in testing or those that have recently launched. Through the programme we aim to to enable a cohort of creative thinkers, known as D&AD Impacters, to develop their projects within 12 months.

    "The D&AD Impact Programme has given us a shrewd understanding of business structures and how to make our idea pay... We could never have imagined at the beginning of the programme, all the different books and projects we are now working on. It has introduced us to amazing contacts within the industry who have been generous with their time and amazingly enthusiastic. Thank you so much D&AD!!! " — Georgina Potier & Jake Abrams, Get Better Books, 2021–2022 Cohort

  • What can I win?

    Anyone shortlisted in the Future Impact category will receive place on the D&AD Impact Programme and the opportunity to apply for a development grant from the £25,000 D&AD Impact Fund. The Impact Programme includes:

    —12-month package of mentorship, training and peer support that’s designed to support project owners with the ideation, launch and early growth of their work
    —A space on a live D&AD Masterclasses of your choice for a year
    —Access to D&AD’s on-demand courses for a year, including D&AD Start-Up School
    —The opportunity to ask the Impact Council for project support in the year following your win
    —The opportunity to present your work live to the D&AD Impact Council during a summer showcase to demonstrate your progress
    —Free entry into the D&AD Awards Impact category, valid for 3 years

    Regardless of whether you would like to participate in the programme, your work will appear in the D&AD Annual, online and freely accessible to the global creative community. In 2024 this reached an audience of over 200,000 people, three quarters of which are outside the UK. Winners receive a Future Impact Pencil, a symbol of creative excellence, and a tree planted in recognition of their award.

  • Impact Fund

    The D&AD Impact Fund is a source of financial support for our awarded entrants. Anyone shortlisted in the Future Impact category is invited to apply for a development grant from the fund. Worth £25,000, applications will need to show how the money will be used toward the development of their awarded project. The funds must be spent within 12 months of being received.

    The Fund will be allocated by the D&AD Impact Council at their discretion and based on the information provided in applications. In 2023, recipients of the fund included:
    —£15,000 to Resting Reef; an innovative memorial and eco-burial service that allows people to transform their remains into reef structures by creating a unique formula containing human ashes and crushed oyster shells – two elements that nourish and enhance marine growth. The allocated fund contributed to development and testing costs and obtaining a Marine Management Organisation (MMO) licence.
    —£10,000 to Lungy Health; initially released as a wellness app for stress and anxiety, Lungy’s technology will be developed into a platform for patients with breathing problems such as asthma, COPD, and long-Covid. The allocated fund contributed to the hiring of a new Clinical Business Development Manager and content creation to effectively market the product.

    The 2024 fund allocation will be announced soon. Nb. D&AD does not claim any ownership of, or expect any financial return from, projects that receive funding.

  • Eligibility

    Future Impact is for designs and initiatives that are on their way to being launched into the world. Prototypes, MVPs and work undergoing testing are all appropriate here. New product or service lines are also eligible under the same conditions.

    We do not accept ideas without proof of concept and campaign communications are not be eligible.

    Commercially released work will only be accepted in exceptional cases, where the work has not made a tangible impact yet and would benefit from the support of the D&AD Impact Programme. Work that has been commercially released and can demonstrate effectiveness should be entered into Impact.

    For more details around the eligibility, please see page 9 in the Entry Kit.

Everything you need to know

D&AD Impacter Testimonial

What connects all the winners in this programme is a call to do something different for the world in which we belong. The D&AD Impact Programme made this call real. It allowed me to make my impact visible and positive... It also gave me the confirmation and motivation that I personally need, especially when working on something that may sound abstract, and huge, but I know it is also possible and what the world needs right now.

Now, more than ever before, as we emerge from the coronavirus crisis, and enter a new set of conflicts, we must design universal systems. We must design beyond geographical boundaries. I have found these values that I try to communicate through my project Geoidentity, in the Impact D&AD Programme, mentors and staff transmit. They build bridges and connect people. Thanks to them, I learned how to generate impact, and how to tell different stories, to different people. But most importantly, I realised how much Geoidentity matters, and how to keep working on it.

Giorgia Maria Malandrino, Geoidentity: Logging the Border, 2021 – 2022 Cohort

Case studies

The Impact Council

Imagine your work being seen by a collection of senior figures from across the creative, investment and social impact space. The D&AD Impact Council consists of designers, brands, CMOs, entrepreneurs, investors and tech stars. All of them are working towards a fairer, more sustainable future in their chosen field. All of them are an invaluable resource for you and your business. They judge the entries, help to mentor Future Impacters, and most of all, they help our winners thrive.

Creativity as a Catalyst for Change — a D&AD Masterclass with WeTransfer

While creativity for good is a personal and business imperative for many, our new course, made possible thanks to WeTransfer, will explore how to turn this awareness and intention into action.

Led by creative change-makers, all working towards a more sustainable future in their chosen fields, this course will build creative confidence to bring world-changing ideas to life, from concept to creation.

Accessible via a free on-demand course, available on D&AD's digital campus to complete at a time and pace to suit you, or via our exclusive cohort events.

D&AD Awards 2025

The award that makes creative careers. The ultimate standard of excellence.

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