How to fund social movement organisations

We suggest a few practical ways how funders could meaningfully support grassroots organisations:

1. Be willing to support unregistered organisations

2. Accept that large-scale social change requires some risk

3. Use appropriate frameworks to evaluate the impact of movement organisations

4. Fund through an intermediary organisation to reduce risk

5. Support movement infrastructure

 

1. Be willing to support unregistered organisations

Supporting unregistered, informal grassroots organisations might require grantmakers to forgo or adapt some of their usual processes. Many activist groups lack legal status and formal structures; they often emerge rapidly due to societal events, or benefit from the flexibility of being unregistered. Funders can help practically by simplifying grant applications, helping organisations with proposals and offering support to informal and unregistered groups - or even, as funders such as Joseph Rowntree have, remove the stipulation that organisations be registered altogether. Participatory grantmaking, unrestricted grants and funding long term are all important considerations that require mutual trust and patience; new movement funders the Carmack Collective show what can be done when the will is there. 

 

2. Accept that large-scale social change requires some risk

Funders vary in their appetite for risk. For example, determining the scope of what constitutes ‘charitable purposes’ is not black and white. While funding can go to activities which are completely legal, such as recruitment, training, press support, education and capacity building, 

some organisations do take part in illegal activities. Funders will also have different attitudes to

potential criticism from the media, another potential risk. In addition, some funders seek certainty that they are having some positive impact on the world – a very reasonable goal. However, social change isn’t a linear pursuit. Sometimes, years of organising bear few visible wins but then you catalyse huge change after a ‘trigger event’. So, rather than focusing on having high certainty of some positive impact, funders could consider maximising expected impact, by betting on bold strategies that change what policies are acceptable within society. As Dan Stein from Giving Green neatly puts it:

 

“We came to the conclusion that to maximize our impact, we have to support strategies that are less measurable but can bring about grand, systematic changes”

Dan Stein, founder and director of Giving Green

 

3. Use appropriate frameworks to evaluate the impact of movement organisations

How can grassroots funders know whether their grantmaking is achieving its goals? There are several useful pointers to effectiveness, many of which will be familiar to funders: a well-articulated theory of change, appropriate governance and so on. However, there are also complexities in assessing grassroots organisations – easily quantifiable outcomes such as people reached don’t necessarily correlate with organisational strength. For example, some research indicates that one of the most promising factors for success is the degree which there is a flexible, independent and committed base of activists. So how do we measure the depth, or power, of grassroots organisations? Here, it may be best to use specialised frameworks, such as the strategic capacity assessment developed by the P3 Lab. The American Jewish World Service has also developed a tool to help funders assess how well a social movement is achieving its goals.

 

4. Fund through an intermediary organisation to reduce risk

Direct funding might still feel too risky or complicated for some. In this case, funders can give to a growing number of intermediate umbrella organisations which focus on mass mobilisation and grassroots activism. Some of these give specific reassurances regarding risk; for example, the Climate Emergency Fund provides a “safe, legal and tax-deductible way” to support the climate movement (they directly address many other funder concerns here). The Social Change Agency have been pioneers in offering fiscal hosting for grassroots movements to help overcome funding barriers, with The Movements Trust also offering this service, and Impatience Earth work to connect donors with practitioners on the ground. Other funder networks which pool donor funds to support grassroots activism include the Climate Justice Just Transition Collaborative, Global Greengrants Fund, Human Rights Funders Network, EDGE Funders Alliance and the Solidaire Network. The Guerilla Foundation has a funders circle of donors committed to funding activism; the foundation has become something of a poster child for radical grantmaking. 

 

“The right to protest is a core tenet of our democracy. Nonviolent disruptive activism has an important role to play in engaging the public and pressuring political and corporate leaders to act with the urgency now required to protect life on this planet.” 

Aileen Getty, funder of grassroots activism through the Climate Emergency Fund 

 

5. Support movement infrastructure

An alternative path is to support organisations that train, develop and build social movement infrastructure. Funding options here include the Momentum Community, Ayni Institute, Future Matters Project, Climate 2025, Social Change Agency, Civic Power Fund and NEON. Funders can also support organisations like Pax Fauna and Social Change Lab who carry out research to support the development of the broader social movement ecosystem. 

 

When and where funding is needed 

Mobilisation and participation come in waves of energy and action, often in response to ‘trigger events’ - a political scandal, a natural disaster - that compel members of the public to get politically engaged. A well-organised movement creates and works with the momentum of these trigger events. Mobilisations are easy to see when they are at their peak and people are on the streets – and this is often when funder interest is piqued. But much of the essential, incremental work is actually beforehand - and it’s this less visible work of building the infrastructure, capacity and skills which allow the big mobilisation to happen where money is really needed. An obvious example is the funding XR received from Guerilla Foundation before their April 2019 protests, which helped them build capacity in order to quickly and greatly grow the movement.

 

Social movement experts, the Ayni Institute, emphasise the need to fund training (e.g. in fundraising, managing the media, escalation tactics, maintaining nonviolent discipline) and for stipends to enable key volunteers to stay active. After trigger events, ‘absorption’ funding takes the momentum from big action moments and turns it into long term engagement. Keeping key volunteers energised and motivated in times of disillusionment is essential to prevent burnout and maintain growth, as is the work needed to turn one-time participants into ongoing activists. Finally there is funding for those brave enough to escalate by dramatic actions such as risking arrest or setting up an occupation – these are like the ‘high stakes’ bets of venture capitalists. 

 

Small investment, for example to pay modest salaries to a few trained organisers, can have a strong force multiplying effect, allowing them to train and energise hundreds of volunteers. 

 

Reaping the rewards 

Achieving social change requires a team of players acting independently but pulling in the same direction. Transformative change is hard to measure and even harder to attribute – different approaches are highly interdependent and no single player can do it all. 

 

Throughout history, grassroots social movements have led the way in changing social, cultural and political norms. Grantmakers must invest in long-term grassroots organising and campaigning. Such work has often been a crucial path to long-lasting change. If funders remain focused only on approaches that are easy to measure, outcomes that happen in the short term and organisations already set up to prioritise measurement, they are missing one of the most powerful mechanisms for changing the world.

 

This research was developed in partnership with Changing Ideas with the aim of sharing with funders the potential benefits and routes to supporting social movements.