Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust : Grassroots Movements Fund

Overview

The Grassroots Movements Fund is a new area of work at the grantmaking organisation 'The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust' and has been created to support the sustainability of movement work

Vision for the fund

To bring an end to the inequalities and injustices within our society, we must tackle the underlying causes and repair the harm. We need to put more power into the hands of those working to address inequality and injustice, and create new systems that put equity, justice and peace first.

The work and leadership of grassroots social movements (“movements”) to challenge the profound and connected inequalities in our society is vital. But movements suffer from a lack of funding, infrastructure, and access to resources and networks. The Grassroots Movements Fund has been created in response to these gaps to support the sustainability of movement work. Grassroots movements work from the ground up and aim to give more power to people and communities to make decisions about their own lives. To keep in line with the aims and values of movements, the Grassroots Movements Fund uses a participatory grant-making process, which means the grant decisions are put into the hands of the communities affected by those decisions.

This is a pilot to resource movements that are on the frontlines of social and environmental injustice, and who are striving for transformative change – a vision in which discrimination and domination in society no longer exist.

Recognising that the roots and experience of many types of oppression and injustice are connected (for example class, race and even age will impact how you experience environmental damage), the Fund will focus on movement work that links together different struggles in their analysis of the problems they are trying to address.

Principles of the fund

Following from conversations with movement organisers and activists, they developed these guiding principles for the fund, which it can be held accountable to. These principles will underpin both the fund’s administration and its approach to grant giving.

They aim for the fund to:

• Support transformative change –Funding groups that are doing long-term relational work to challenge systems of inequality
• Use collective and movement-centred decision-making – Sharing power and modelling some of the tenets of participatory grant giving
• Have an intersectional framing – Seeking to connect struggles, and acknowledging and addressing differences of power among those involved in the fund
• Be accountable – By being closely connected to and answerable to grassroots groups, through formal mechanisms and informal relationships
• Be accessible – Embedding the learnings from disability justice groups in removing the barriers which “disable” people from being able to participate equally
• Be transparent – Clearly communicating processes, decisions and learnings and where power is held
• Be regenerative not extractive – Leaving movements with greater capacity and resources rather than depleting them
• Be a space for learning – Testing out new ideas, sharing learning and acknowledging mistakes

Funding and Eligibility

The Grassroots Movements Fund has around £1.5 million, half of which was distributed in round one in 2023, and the other half will be distributed in the second round in 2024. The fund makes grants of between £10k and £70k to every successful application and grants can cover up to a two-year period.

Their approach for this funding round, unlike the first one, is to carry out targeted outreach to find groups aligned to their aims and values. To respect people's time and limit competition they will be inviting around 30-40 groups to apply based on how closely they meet the criteria and other factors, such as creating a balance across issues, communities, approaches and regions.

What will they fund

Welcome applications from organisations that support grassroots movements groups with infrastructure needs such as meeting space, accessibility needs, facilitation, conflict resolution, accountability, training/ guidance on collective decision-making, strategy, legal rights etc.

Groups applying to the fund must:

1. Be based in the UK with work primarily focused in the UK

1. JRCT’s ‘area of benefit’ is the UK. This is in the trust deed registered with the Charity Commission and therefore we cannot fund work outside the UK.

2. Be a non-profit organisation or a coalition of non-profit organisations, such as:

1. Unregistered group working to benefit the community
2. Company Limited by Guarantee
3. Community Interest Company
4. Charity
5. Cooperative Society
6. Community Benefit Society
7. As a registered charity, JRCT only supports non-profit organisations that aim to support the community rather than creating profit for individuals.

3. Have systems in place for making decisions and managing money:

1. Documents outlining aims, values and how the group works together (including how decisions are made)
2. A bank account in the name of the organisation with 2 or more signatories (or another organisation (fiscal host) who will hold the funds)
3. Experience of managing money and appropriate systems in place to do so
4. Whilst we don’t want groups to feel like they need to become more formal to receive funding, having the right systems and resources in place will help you to manage the funds well and should minimise the pressure that can come when grassroots groups receive large amounts of money.

4. Be part of a grassroots social movement; which means your group:

1. Is part of a network of groups and organisations, either locally or wider, collectively working to bring about social and political change (eg changing the structures and values of society)
2. Was set up, and now run by, a community who have come together in their own time to take action on an injustice they’re facing (could now include paid staff but group still led by members)
3. Is led by / decisions are made by those directly affected by the issue the group is working on

5. Be working towards transformative change; this means your group:

1. Has a vision of the world where inequality and oppression (eg based on ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexuality, class, disability) no longer exists
2. Is addressing imbalances of power and challenging systems of oppression, (eg through building collective power in communities, political organising, direct action, practises focused on healing and infrastructure/ resources to support this work) and looking for solutions that go beyond reforms
3. Includes people with lived experience of oppression and their views and experiences are listened to and guide the work of the group

See website for further guidance.

Please note that although they are unable to fund core costs (e.g. salaries relating to general management and administration, office rent and bills) for most organisations who are not registered charities, they are committed to including an appropriate amount to cover day to day running costs of a group. They can consider paying for salaries where it is clear that the role relates only to the charitable project that is being funded.