ROSA: Stand With Us Fund

Overview

The  STAND WITH US FUND was set up to address the critical lack of investment in frontline organisations supporting women and girls who experience male violence.

Originally started with money raised by Reclaim These Streets in the wake of the appalling kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police Officer, the fund exists to make the UK safer for all women and girls.

The fund supports organisations to become stronger and more effective; better meeting the needs of women and girls and influencing wider change for all women and girls across the UK. Organisations can apply for up to £25,000 to fund areas related to organisational development, including strategy, governance, leadership, having a stronger voice within the women’s movement, building alliances, fundraising, impact, systems and processes.

This fund is for organisations that have an income of between £100,000 and £500,000 (from their last set of annual accounts).

Summary

Rosa’s Stand With Us fund is for women’s and girls’ organisations delivering frontline services addressing male violence against women and girls which have an income of between £100,000 and £500,000.

They will prioritise applications from:

• Organisations which are led by and for Black and minoritised women and girls
• Organisations led by and for women and girls with disabilities
• Organisations led by and for LGBTQ+ women and girls
• Organisations operating in the top 10% of the most disadvantaged areas in the UK – based on the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)
• Organisations based in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland.

What Rosa wants to achieve with this funding

The Stand With Us fund (Round 2) aims to achieve the following outcomes:

• Women and girls will be supported by organisations delivering frontline services to end male violence against women and girls, ensuring women and girls can be safe, healthy and equal.
• Women and girls organisations will be empowered and strengthened, meaning 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 such as developing strategy, strengthening governance and leadership, a stronger voice in the women’s movement, creating stronger alliances and partnerships, increasing fundraising, volunteering and activism, demonstrating impact and more effective systems and processes. 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 your work
• more effective systems and processes

Who can apply?

This fund is for women’s and girls’ organisations delivering frontline services addressing male violence against women and girls that have an income of between £100,000 and £500,000 (from their last set of annual accounts).

In order to apply, your organisation must meet all the following eligibility criteria:

• Be a women’s and/or girls’ organisation. Rosa defines women’s and girls’ organisations as those which are run by, for and with women and girls. This means that your organisation will be governed and led by women. It will have a Board of Trustees (or similar) where the Chair is a woman, and the majority of members are women. The majority of your organisation’s employee leadership team will be women. Your organisation will have the principle objective of working with women and/or girls and the majority of your organisation’s beneficiaries are, and will always be, women and/or girls.
• Be an organisation delivering a frontline service to women and/or girls who have been affected by male violence and abuse including (but not limited to) domestic violence, coercive control, rape, sexual abuse, forced marriage, ‘honour’ based violence, FGM, sexual harassment, economic and financial abuse.
• Be a not-for-profit organisation
• Have an income of between £100,000 and £500,000 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.

How much can you apply for?

You can apply for a grant of up to £25,000 over a 1-year period from January 2025 to December 2025.

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.

Below sets out the types of changes they want to see, as well as examples of the type of work they will fund.

The change they want to see

When they are assessing your application, they want to see that their grant will help you make one or more of the changes listed below.

Examples of work they will fund  

Here are some of the types of work they can fund (it is not an exhaustive list). It isn’t their intention to direct you to apply for these costs, but simply to give you an idea of the breadth of costs they can consider.

Your organisation has more effective leadership  

• Leadership training for senior staff members or to enable staff to take the next step into leadership roles
• Specialist management or skills-based training courses - Mentoring and coaching
• Organisational awaydays to support the growth and sustainability of your organisation
• Extra capacity and expertise to support current staff develop how your organisation is led and managed through a review process or by providing mentoring and coaching.
• You may also want to include costs for staff self-care: they recognise that this takes many different forms.

Your organisation has more effective governance    

• Commission expertise and/or extra capacity to undertake a governance review, conduct a board skills audit, or run training for the board and staff team. 

Your organisation has a clearer strategy  

• Backfill the Chief Executive’s role so they can develop a business plan, a new service, or a theory of change. 
• Buy in additional capacity or expertise to help you do this.

Your organisation has stronger alliances with other women’s organisations 

• Organise a programme of visits to other organisations doing similar work to you, in order to share learning, build partnership and improve your work;
• Backfill a staff members’ time to enable them to develop partnerships with other organisations;
• Pay a membership fee, or subscription cost where this would enhance your work and your reach. 

Your organisation is more able to attract funding from other sources.  

• Develop a fundraising strategy, employ a fundraiser, or invest in staff training.  
• Research how you could tap into new sources of funding such as Trusts and Foundations you haven’t worked with before, crowd funding, community giving, or setting up a social enterprise.  

Your organisation has a stronger voice within the women’s movement. 

• Develop a communications or marketing strategy for your organisation. 
• Employ someone to develop and run your social media presence or train existing staff in how to do this. 
• Train volunteers so they are more confident undertaking media work, or public speaking.
• Develop and run a training course for women who are interested in your work and who would like to volunteer for you.
• Undertake a recruitment drive to attract new volunteers to support your work

Your organisation is more able to demonstrate the impact of its work.

• Improve how you collect and use information about your organisation’s impact. 
• Design and implement a monitoring system, a way of collecting feedback or 
• Purchase a database and input your data into it.
• Buy in extra resource to develop new ways of communicating your impact to stakeholders and potential funders such as using case studies.

Your organisation has more effective systems and processes. 

• Design and implement a new I.T system and develop new processes such as referral systems or financial controls in order to improve your work and secure the organisation’s long-term future.
• Train employees in new ways of working that will improve the way services are delivered