Here are some of the year-by-year highlights of our work:

1994: South-North exchanges. CIVA brought Stan and Mari Thekaekara to the UK to explore poverty in the UK and link this issues and ideas in international development. As a result Oxfam involved Stan centrally in their UK Poverty programme, and Stan is now a Trustee of Oxfam GB, the first "beneficiary" from the South to have achieved this. Some of other exchanges looked at housing, peace-building and young Asian girls growing up in a modern world.

1995: International philanthropy. CIVA undertook a study for the Charities Aid Foundation on the voluntary sector in India which led to the setting up of CAF India, and the spreading of CAF internationally. CIVA also encourages the development of fundraising in the South through publications and training.

1996: Homeless self-help. With an innovation grant from Crisis and in partnership with the National Homeless Alliance, CIVA established StreetLife to promote volunteering and organise speak-outs for homeless people. This led to the establishment of Groundswell, the self-help forum for homeless people.

1997: Village literacy. With a grant from the National Lottery, CIVA developed a programme of "village publishing" to develop and distribute books for rural readers with limited literacy skills alongside a programme of village library development. The latest development in this programme is to set up "Village Reading Circles" where women can explore some of the issues and solutions for their lives and futures.

1998: Telephone helplines for streetchildren. CIVA developed a replication strategy for ChildLine India, and obtained a lottery grant to expand the scheme from Mumbai (Bombay) across India working in partnership with the Government of India. Today, ChildLine India operates in over 50 cities and an international agency, Child Helpline International, has been set up in Amsterdam to promote children's helplines across the world.

1999: Young grantmakers. CIVA established YouthBank UK to enable young people to make grants to projects led by young people. The initial pilot programme involved 6 projects across the UK with the development overseen by a consortium of 5 national youth agencies. Today, there are approximately 70 YouthBanks all around the UK, and others starting in Eastern Europe, South Asia and Africa. The project is now under the full control of a Board of young people.

2000: Social entrepreneurship. Michael Norton assembled the consortium which became the successful bidder for the £100 million Millennium Legacy to create an endowment for making awards to individuals. This led to the creation of UnLtd, which makes over 1,000 awards each year to individuals with ideas for changing their community, society or the world.

2001: Youth Volunteering. Michael Norton led the International year of Volunteers youth programme, which included the RSA Young Leaders Awards which was developed by CIVA. This has now become the Young Achiever Awards run by the Young Achievers Trust, which is a partnership of UnLtd, YouthNet and CIVA.

2002: International youth activism. CIVA established the "Young People Change the World!" international summer school for young activists, which is organised entirely by young people. This was held at Atlantic College in Wales, and became an annual event. In 2005, the summer school was held in Pune, in West India. And in 2006, the summer school was held in Gloucestershire

2003: Street children's banking. In partnership with Butterflies, a Delhi-based NGO working with street children and with funding from Comic Relief, CIVA supported the development of street children's banking in South Asia. The banks are run by the children themselves, and provide a safe place for their money, encourage saving and make loans for micro-enterprises. At the end of 2006, there were 20 children's banks in 6 countries.

2004: 365 ways to change the world. Based on the idea that lots of people can do lots of often quite small things which seek to address the problems of the world, and together these can have a significant impact, CIVA researched 365 issues and practical actions that people can take to change the world, and these are being disseminated through a publication, on a website and by offering content to other websites.

2005: A pilot village reading programme was established in Andhra Pradesh to encourage reading and enable highly disadvantaged people to access information with the potential to change their lives. This project is now being scaled up to cover several villages in two clusters.

2006: MyBnk launched with support from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. This innovative project enables young people to operate their own savings and lending bank in a school, foyer or community setting.

2007: Plans developed to turn two UK council housing estates carbon neutral, with CIVA working in partnership with East Housing in Newham and Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol.

2008: A foundation for social entrepreneurs launched in India to invest in individuals to come up with solutions for better communities and to help  eliminate poverty.

Launch of Tap, an empty bottle to be filled up from the tap as a campaign against the environmental impact of bottled water to encourage people to drink “local tap”, and to raise funds for water projects in the developing world.

2009: FoodCycle launched to encourage young people to volunteer to cook surplus and donated food using donated kitchen to feed people in need, such as the homeless and refugees.

2010: Buzzbank launched as a crowdfunding platform specifically for social ventures, to help raise money and supporters.