The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust has long supported people doing courageous and visionary work.
As a funder supporting those working on the root causes of conflict and injustice, we recognise that many of the grantees we have funded during our history have not always been considered ‘popular’ or necessarily warmly received by powerful institutions or governments. While we fund charitable work, our grantees are not always charities or non-profits, they are also collectives, movements and activists. We wish to reiterate our continued commitment to all of our grantees at a time when many of the important causes we stand behind have been weaponised for political gain, are accused of polarising public opinion, and when many funders and donors can feel pressurised to choose ‘safer’ causes.
Our grantees prioritise systemic change work because there are serious and complex problems to fix in our society and we want them wholeheartedly to succeed.
You can read more about our funding priorities here.
In reiterating our commitment to our grantees, we want to offer reassurance that JRCT will stand with them and continue to use its position to collaborate with those we fund within the constraints of our available finances, the finite capacity of our JRCT colleagues, and our grant governance framework.
Our commitment to stand by all of our grantees in 2024 includes:
1. Holding the pursuit of fairness, equality, justice, and truth-telling within our grant-making, but recognising we ourselves are not the frontline of systemic change. We are not a campaigning organisation ourselves, but rather a grant-maker in a wider coalition of support for these grantees.
2. Examining, confronting, and critiquing our own colonial and capitalist history and not assuming a position of moral superiority as a grant-maker. We don’t “know best”, nor wish to position ourselves as such.
3. Not being influenced by a culture of fear or allowing the fear of scrutiny and stigma of wider society to cloud our judgements about who we support with grant-making.
4. We recognise that long-term systemic change may only occur when we support those often challenging the status quo or pursuing redress and justice for marginalised and/or silenced communities.
5. Given the often-unintended downside of driving change – we will not waver in the face of adversity, become fragile amidst criticism, or allow ourselves to be pressured into not standing by a grantee we believe in.
6. Trying our best to balance the unmet demand of new grantee applications with the long-term commitments for existing grantees. Working within our constraints and means to effect change as a UK-based charity, does not mean we are unambitious or not courageous. Respecting laws, regulations, finite funding, mission and strategy, values, and governance constraints of our Quaker-led organisation, we seek to signpost when we are not best positioned to support responsibly and ethically within our networks.
7. Working in an unoppressive way and decentering ourselves as philanthropists from the grantor-grantee relationship, in order to strengthen “the hands of others” to deliver their important work in driving systemic change.
8. Respecting grantees’ independence of voice, freedom to enter into respectful discourse and constructive challenge, and the expertise and insights lived experience brings to driving meaningful change.
9. Developing candid and authentic relationships with our grantees and continuing to work in a fair and inclusive way with them as we recognise that the complexity of multi-faceted change includes wider participation and the ability to listen.
10. Choosing a journey of shifting away from the power imbalances in philanthropy and collaborating at a deeper level with grantees to inform grant programme priorities and unmet needs for the future.
11. Safeguarding our grantees, our own JRCT people, and our partners and allies engaging with the disruptive work of systemic change to the best of our line of sight and ability. Keeping others safe is a key priority for us.
12. Empowering others to have the financial resources and networks to do the important work to create a better society and fairer world.
Change-makers, activists, movements, policymakers, and campaigners cannot do this work in a silo and need solidarity at this challenging time to strengthen their hands to achieve change.
We warmly thank everyone we have collaborated with over the years and look forward to the future with optimism. We will announce news of new grant rounds opening in the autumn and winter.