Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust: Peace Programme

Overview

Joseph Rowntree hoped that his trust would ‘sound a clear note with regard to the great scourges of humanity, especially with regard to war’. As part of the Quaker tradition, the JRCT is committed to the creation of a peaceful world, and the creation of a culture of peace.

The Trust recognises that complex phenomena create peace and war and that new drivers of conflict, such as climate change and access to water, are constantly emerging. Joseph Rowntree wanted to seek out the underlying causes of weakness or evil rather than remedying ‘more superficial manifestations’. The Trust believes that long-term approaches to create peace are usually more effective than short-term fixes. They are idealistic, but recognise that pragmatism is often more effective than purity.

Much of their work on corporate responsibility, racial justice and democracy, in Ireland (North and South) and South Africa, is already aimed at these underlying causes in order to create a culture of peace, accountability and democracy. Under the heading of ‘Peace’, they anticipate funding groups or organisations that are working to influence the behaviour and thinking of the public, and of people in powerful positions including those working in the military, national governments and international organisations.

They wish to support organisations or individuals who promote values similar to their own when working towards peace. They do not fund those who advocate aggressive military solutions to conflicts.

They wish to fund organisations or individuals who can identify the strategic steps needed towards achieving peace. They hope to evaluate grant applications in terms of the extent to which the work proposed will ultimately advance the cause of peace and nonviolence.

They are particularly interested in funding organisations or individuals who are working on:

• control or elimination of specific forms of warfare and the arms trade
• influencing appropriate agencies to take or promote peaceful choices to prevent violent conflict or its recurrence
• improving, through practical measures, the effectiveness of peacebuilding and conflict resolution
• bringing nonviolent and non-military responses to conflict into the mainstream amongst NGOs, decision-makers and the wider public
• pacifism and conscientious objection to military service
• initiatives which strengthen the peace sector's ability to effectively promote the issues above

Location of work:

• They are most likely to fund individuals and organisations working in the UK and Ireland and (if the organisation is working on influencing an international institution such as the EU, NATO or the UN) the rest of Europe.

JRCT often makes unrestricted or core costs grants, as their believe that is often the most effective way to support an organisation. However, JRCT only makes grantsfor work that falls into one of their programme areas. Their do not make make general charitable contributions to other organisations.

There are no fixed grants limits. They encourage you to ask for what you need, but also to be realistic. They receive many applications for amounts they cannot possibly fund. See their application guidelines for further details or look at their grant database to see previous grants that they have made.