Special iApps: what makes them different?

Special iApps and Learn and Thrive have many things in common. We share the desire to help children with learning difficulties to have equal opportunities to learn, and, if you hadn’t already guessed it, thrive! We share the desire to collaborate with other organisations that hold the same values and goals, while helping to raise awareness. But when it comes to funding, you may wonder about how it all works.  

To keep it simple, let’s talk about the difference between Special iApps and Learn and Thrive.

Learn and Thrive is a charity, as you can see through our #thankyouthursdays on social media, it relies on public donations and fundraisers, along with support from businesses and grants makers, like The National Lottery. Some of these come from the public, such as the  Strictly Makaton Challenge  and others from larger organisations like our corporate supporter Quality Compliance Systems  (QCS). In fact, we have a whole blog post about how we are funded, which includes how to donate.

Special iApps is slightly different. They are a social enterprise, meaning they rely on grant funding, and the money from paid memberships. This element only started recently, mostly due to reduced availability of the sorts of grants social enterprises rely on (primarily an issue from the pandemic). However, it is non-profit, so all the money that Special iApps receives goes back into creating resources for disadvantaged families, and global initiatives to expand how far their work reaches. They, like us, also take donations, which primarily help to reduce the cost of their resources for disadvantaged people.  

This money has all gone to helping Special iApps flourish into an organisation which 550+ award-winning educational resources with 5000+ words to learn from. This is growing rapidly each month, and later this year there will be more developments, including Special Words Plus, Special Stories Plus, and Special Spelling Plus. They provide extensive add-ons, including Numicon shapes, Makaton symbols, and (our favourite!) special Teach Me Too resources for members of both Teach Me Too and Special iApps. All these amazing features are easy to use on a wide range of devices, as well as being printable, and can be personalised to support each child at each stage of learning. 

On top of all this, they have a free 14-day trial!    

Although our organisations receive funding slightly differently, we share many of the same goals, and want to help you access each other’s material, to help every child Learn and Thrive!