York Guides

The "Rowntree Visionaries" will be sent on their way with generous, full-time salaries of up to £40,000 plus £5,000 expenses for five years, to attack injustice, galvanise reform and, in some cases, maybe even tilt at windmills.

Chosen from 1,622 applicants for the unprecedented opportunity, the winners want to close Guantánamo Bay, help pocket-sized countries by working as an independent "super-diplomat", and cut away bureaucratic obstacles to spreading healthcare knowledge across the world.

The other three projects, which include a jobshare by two visionaries, are equally close to the Quaker ideals of Joseph Rowntree, the chocolate multimillionaire whose legacy - left on the basis that it would all be spent by 1930 - continues to grow in the shareholdings of his three York-based trusts.

They envisage changing attitudes to race equality in the United Kingdom through black-led initiatives, a radical twinning between part of Coventry and the developing world, and novel methods of sustainability nurtured in a Yorkshire Pennine mill town.

"We've all dreamt up ideas of how we could change the world," said Steve Pittam, secretary of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, which dreamed up the idea in the spirit of its founder's conviction that determined individuals can change things for the better.

"This has been an amazing opportunity to hear some of those ideas and help make the best a reality.

"The quality of applications was very high, and the seven appointed visionaries are exceptional, not just because of their visions, but because of their track record of delivering real change. We expect great things from them."

The project suffered a few initial hiccups from another quality associated with Joseph Rowntree and others who try to do good. Modesty held back a large number of people from applying, until widespread advertising and the insistence of friends and supporters got the number of applicants up from only 50 in February.

The trust is prepared for a certain amount of cynicism, but can point to similar initiatives from Rowntree which brought about lasting change.

Foir instance, the sister Reform Trust virtually invented the modern use of paid researchers for MPs by financing a 1970s pilot scheme of young recruits who were nicknamed "chocolate soldiers".

The Charitable Trust has been behind the creation of household names including Voluntary Service Overseas, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Low Pay Unit and the Runnymede Trust.

The Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust has paid for countless innovations in housing since 1904, testing many of them at its model village of New Earswick in York.

Applicants for the roles - officially called Visionaries for a Just and Peaceful World - had to précis their dreams into 100 words and show they had a track record in achieving change.

All submissions, ranging from one by a student aged 21 to another by an 85-year-old who said that he might die within five years but would like a crack anyway, were tested against Rowntree's founding trust deed, which requires the promotion of truth, integrity, justice, equality, peace and conflict resolution.

The businessman in Rowntree also liked hardheaded reformers.

He built his sweet empire from 12 staff when he joined his father in York at the age of 15 to more than 7,000 on his retirement at 86.

From Guantánamo to equality - the top ideas

Karen Chouhan, born in Pakistan and brought up in London, wants to overhaul Britain's race equality framework by letting black communities set the race agenda. She heads the 1990 Trust, which runs www.blink.org.uk, Britain's most-hit website for ethnic minority communities.

Roy Head, 40, is a Cambridge University double-first who wants to link governments and media in the developing world to spread healthcare information about easily preventable disease. He set up and headed the health division of the BBC World Service Trust.

Heather Parker and Matt Hinton (jobshare) are from Coventry and plan to build links between their own ethnically diverse part of the Midlands city and others in the developing world. Both have worked as community development consultants.

Carne Ross, 38, became disillusioned with conventional diplomacy after working for the Foreign Office in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the Middle East peace process. He will set up a new company, Independent Diplomat, to help small, new or transitional states counter the inbuilt bias of diplomacy in favour of rich and powerful countries.

Clive Stafford Smith, American-born but educated in Britain, he wants to close Guantánamo Bay and similar establishments, which he calls "lawless enclaves which form a model for human rights abuse around the world". He is the founder of Reprieve, which campaigns forprisoners on Death Row in the US.

Geoff Tansey, 55, is a soil scientist and food industry expert who wants to challenge international laws governing food systems, including global patents and trade restrictions. He has worked extensively in developing countries for the Department of International Development, Oxfam and the UN.