The fund was opened to applications from grassroots groups in December, and aims to provide funding, infrastructure and access to resources and networks to support the sustainability of movement work.
This work follows several years of design and development, after JRCT recognised that movements were an important, and largely missing, element within how we fund social change.
Trustees made a decision in 2020 to support this new area of work, after recommendations from a consultation, outlined in our ‘Developing a pilot movement fund report’.
To keep in line with the aims and values of movements the Grassroots Movements Fund will use a participatory grant-making process.This means the grant decisions will be put into the hands of the communities affected by those decisions. A new structure called the ‘Movement Assembly’ has been set up which is made up of organisers and activists working within movements.
The movements team, Elena Blackmore, Mumbi Nkonde and Sophie Pritchard, said: “This is an exciting and necessary shift towards resourcing groups that would otherwise have thought JRCT is not for them. We are committed to supporting work that puts more power into the hands of those working to address inequality and injustice, and create new systems that put equity, justice and peace first.”
If you would like to learn more about the work visit the website
*Please note that the fund was paused in January to process applications. You can read more here.