Community Action Fund

Overview

The Community Action Fund exists to support grassroots campaigning and community organising in the UK.

It will provide one-off grants between £2,500 and £20,000.

These grants are available to grassroots organisations that are building the power of their community and campaigning for long-term change.

All successful applicants will be offered support beyond funding. This will include the Civic Power Fund Governance Hub and optional, bespoke cohort and capacity building opportunities.

IS THE COMMUNITY ACTION FUND RIGHT FOR YOU?

The Community Action Fund is open to UK-based organisations that are:

1. Rooted in and accountable to their community. 
   
2. Hoping to achieve long-term change on issues affecting the lives of their community. 
   
3. Addressing injustice by building the power of their community. For example, through community organising, campaigning, or democratic engagement. 
   
4. Lacking the resources to take their vision to the next level. 
   
5. Seeking to build a larger us and resisting the politics of division

The Community Action Fund prioritises organisations led by people with lived experience of the injustice they are trying to overcome.

WHAT IS THE CIVIC POWER FUND LOOKING FOR?

The Civic Power Fund exists to help community organisers and campaigners who are tackling injustice and exclusion.

They want to grow people's ability to make a difference on the issues that matter most to them. They want people to have the power to change the conditions they live in. They want them to influence the decisions that impact their lives now and in the future.

Community organising and grassroots campaigning enables communities to do all of this in a way that lasts.

WHAT IS COMMUNITY ORGANISING AND WHY DO THEY CARE ABOUT IT?

Community organising brings people together. It builds relationships. And it brings people into the spaces and places where decisions are made.

Organised communities provide immediate and vital support to one another. As they come together to work on shared issues, they get stronger. As their strength grows, they can demand more. This makes it harder for people in power to ignore them. And it means they can win lasting change for individuals, communities, and society.

Organising allows people to see their own power in new ways. In an organised community, people who work together can go from being friends or neighbours to being leaders that inspire others, challenge power, and change conditions.

Organising can change an area or a community. It can force decision-makers to listen to people they have ignored. It can put power into communities' hands.

Ultimately, community organising gives people power over the spaces and places where they live and the systems under which they are governed.

WHO WILL THE COMMUNITY ACTION FUND GIVE MONEY TO?

You don't have to call yourself a community organiser or talk about power to get funded by the Community Action Fund, but to apply for funding you do have to meet the criteria listed below.

• You are working to address issues of injustice or exclusion in a local area or across a community of common experience.
• You help people to understand the issue, how it impacts them and what can be done about it.
• You bring people together to think about what change they want to see.
• You help people come up with the tactics they need to make that change a reality.
• You help people develop their own leadership and not tell them what to do.
• You are building something that lasts beyond a single campaign or intervention (but the money can go towards an important moment or event on the horizon).
• You are building or aim to build relationships and alliances with other groups that have similar goals.
• Your work shares responsibility. You allow lots of people to get involved. You don't rely on one or two people to manage everything and decide everything.
• You promote respect for others and encourage participation from all kinds of people.
• You don't discriminate against anyone, exclude or promote hatred.
• You are lacking the resources to take your vision to the next level.

Community groups come in lots of different flavours and types. You might provide a service. You might be protesting or campaigning. You might be a way for people to connect and come together. If all these bullet points sound like - or what you aim to do - then you are the type of group that should apply for the Community Action Fund.

The Community Action Fund supports groups, not individuals. However, we know that many grassroots groups will not have a formal structure. This should not stop you applying. The Civic Power Fund is partnering with the Social Change Nest to ensure that safe and transparent fiscal hosting is available for un-constituted groups.

DEFINITIONS

• Democracy. Democracy means people working together to identify problems, co-design solutions, and win change. It thrives when people have the power to hold their elected representatives to account beyond participating in elections.
• Power. Power is the ability to act. Civic power means people coming together to win lasting change that matters to them. When members of a community stand in solidarity with each other and with those outside their community, they can build a base of people power capable of holding decision-makers to account. This requires people knowing how to influence and engage with democracy over the long-term.
• Lived experience. First hand experience — past or present — of injustice.
• Justice. The five commonly understood principles of social justice are 1) work grounded in human rights; work focussed on 2) the fair distribution of both resources and 3) opportunities; 4) ensuring all groups have equal capacity to participate in democracy; and 5) action to prevent discrimination based on age, class, gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity and disability.
• Grassroots. Organisations that are rooted within a specific community or area.
• Community. Community can apply to your local area, or the particular group you represent. For example: people living with disabilities, people with experience of the immigration or asylum system, people of colour, working class communities, women, and LGBTQI communities.