Deadline: 30-Jun-22
The Needmor Fund is proud to announce an open call for the Core Grants Program to provide general operating support to groups engaged in the work of community organizing.
Grantees funded through this program are eligible to receive funding for up to three years, after which an organization may not apply for at least two years.
The mission of The Needmor Fund is to work with others to bring about social justice. They support groups of people who come together to organize their community, build power, and challenge the social, economic, or political conditions that bar their access to participation in a democratic society.
Eligibility Criteria
The Fund’s Core Grants Program will focus on supporting community organizing in the Midwest – specifically an eight state region that includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
Criteria
- While Needmor embraces the opportunity to fund emerging organizations, their commitment remains to funding strong, effective community organizing. They thus seek to support groups that:
- Organize primarily low- and moderate-income people, as evidenced by demographic/ statistical data indicating social and economic distress.
- Have a multi-issue agenda that reflects an intersectional approach to addressing issues associated with race, economic justice and equality.
- Demonstrate a commitment to long-term base building and effectively link issue work to building organizational power.
- Are democratically run and consist of a dues-paying membership base, with deep member engagement and a process for both developing and regenerating a strong cadre of leaders over time.
- Have developed a power analysis and a clearly defined plan for challenging/altering the dynamics of power within their communities.
- Engage in direct action and have demonstrated the ability to win concrete victories of increasingly larger scale.
- Have a vision to continually build and aggregate power, enabling them to take on bigger policy issues and expand its base of allies to increase its impact over time.
- Are well managed, engage in strategic planning, and have a sound budget and diversified fundraising plan.
- Additional Screens: In addition to meeting the basic criteria, Needmor is interested in funding groups that:
- Organize across lines of race, class, and gender; and, promote the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Are linked to and leverage the power of faith, labor, and community into powerful organizations.
- Demonstrate a willingness to work collaboratively for the purpose of building collective power to achieve systematic change at the regional, state, and national level.
- Are connected to larger organizing networks that are working to implement new, broad, and creative public policies that address systemic issues facing low- and moderate-income communities.
- Integrate voter engagement strategies and the expansion of democracy into the building of powerful community organizations.
- Demonstrate the ability to develop an agenda that frames issues of relevance to both urban and rural constituencies.
- Recognize and address the impact of global corporatization as it relates to issues of economic and environmental justice.
- Have potential for attracting the interest and support of other funders.
For more information, visit http://www.needmorfund.org/forms/needmor-application/