Rosa: Rise Fund
Overview
The funding is for organisational development work relating to areas such as strategy, governance, leadership, alliances and partnerships, funding, demonstrating impact and systems and processes.
What Rosa wants to achieve with this funding
Rise Fund aims to achieve the following outcomes:
Women and girls will be supported by women’s and girls’ organisations led by and for Black and racially minoritised women, ensuring women and girls can be safe, healthy and equal.
Women’s and girls’ organisations will be empowered and strengthened, mean in that they will be in a stronger position to survive, thrive and grow into the future.
They want to enable organisations to be in a stronger position to survive, thrive and grow by investing in organisational development work. This means organisations will be able to report one or more of these changes:
- a clearer strategy
- more effective governance
- more effective leadership
- a stronger voice within the women’s movement
- stronger alliances with other women’s organisations
- more able to attract funding from other sources
- more able to demonstrate the impact of their work
- more effective systems and processes
Who can apply?
This fund is for women’s and girls’ organisations which are led by and for Black and racially minoritised women, that have an income of between £30,000 and £300,000 (from their last set of signed annual accounts).
In order to apply, your organisation must meet all the following eligibility criteria:
- Be a women’s or girls’ organisation which is led by, for and with Black and racially minoritised women. This means that the organisation will be governed and led by Black and racially minoritised women. It will have a Board of Trustees (or similar) where the Chair is a woman, and 75% of members are Black and racially minoritised women. 75% of the organisation’s employee leadership team will be Black and racially minoritised women. The organisation will have the principal objective of working with Black and racially minoritised women and/or girls and the majority of the organisation’s beneficiaries are, and will always be, Black and racially minoritised women and/or girls.
- Be a not-for-profit organisation.
- Have an income of between £30,000 and £300,000 from your last set of annual accounts (these are full year accounts which have been signed off by your board).
- Have unrestricted reserves of no more than 12 months expenditure.
- Have a written governing document, e.g. a constitution or set of rules.
- Have a governing body with at least 3 unrelated members.
- Have a UK-based bank or building society account in the name of the organisation, with at least 2 unrelated signatories.
- Have an appropriate safeguarding policy in place (every organisation that delivers charitable activities has a duty to safeguard volunteers, staff members, participants and donors).
- Deliver all their work in one or more of the four UK Nations: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Rise Fund will prioritise organisations led by and for Black and racially minoritised women, which are also:
- operating in the top 20% of the most disadvantaged areas in the UK -based on the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD);
- based in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland;
- led by and for disabled women and girls;
- led by and for LGBTQ+ women and girls.
Organisations which meet more than one of the above priorities will be given higher priority than those that meet one priority.
They are especially keen to fund organisations which are created from and connected to the communities they serve, designing their services based on direct, lived experience and involving their beneficiaries in decision-making.
In addition, organisations that have not previously been funded by Rise Fund will be prioritised.
How much can you apply for?
You can apply for a 2-year grant of between £10,000 (£5,000 per year) and £40,000 (£20,000 per year).
They recommend that you do not apply for more than a third of your last year’s income, per year. For example, if your income last year was £30,000, they would consider an application for a maximum of £10,000 each year (£20,000 in total).
What sort of work will Rosa fund?
They will fund organisational development work that will support your organisation to survive, thrive and grow into the future.
They know that developing an organisation takes time and resource, so through this programme they are funding extra capacity in organisations, rather than supporting existing costs.
Strengthening an organisation requires ‘thinking’ and ‘development’ time and this is often best done by the people leading your organisation. They will therefore backfill senior staff positions in order to provide resource for this and/or pay for additional senior staff time.
Although their focus is on providing extra capacity, they encourage applicants to ask for a contribution to their general running costs through the grant, as they understand how important this is to an organisation’s financial security. 25% of your grant can be for general running costs. For example, if you are requesting £40,000 in total, 10,000 of this can be for general running costs.
For examples of funded initiatives, please refer to their Guidance Notes.