Deadline: 22-Feb-21
The Fund for Santa Barbara has been announced that provide seed grants to new grassroots projects, general support or project grants to small organizations, and targeted grants to larger, more established organizations.
The Fund believes that significant social changes ultimately require broad participation in democratic control of all social and economic institutions. Historically, social conditions improve most dramatically when people organize on their own behalf, form alliances with other like-minded people & organizations, and build coalitions to confront and change the conditions that have denied them access, equity, and justice.
The Fund gives preference to projects working to address the root causes of social, economic, environmental, and political problems. Its mission is to advance progressive change by strengthening movements for social, political, economic, and environmental justice.
Priorities
- Guidelines: Does this project have the potential to create or advance social, economic, political, and/or environmental change?.
- Priorities: Are there elements of Community Organizing, Lobbying, Direct Action, Base building, Coalition-Building, or Legal Strategy?
- Access to Funding: Does this project lack access to funding? Would the project go forward without support from the Fund?
- Critical Timing/Need: Does the organization have the capacity to reach their social change goals? Are the key players familiar with other organizations in the same field to further the goal of movement building?
- Impact of Funds: How clear is the budget outline? How well does the budget support the project’s social change goals? Will funding help start-up the organization, stabilize the organization, and/or leverage other funding sources?
- Regional Equity: Will this project help the GMC achieve its objective of providing equity in funding throughout Santa Barbara County?
They Do Not Fund
- Political campaigns that support a candidate or a political party;
- Private (vs. public) interests;
- Direct labor organizing;
- Projects providing direct services without a social change component;
- Direct support to individuals
- Building improvements;
- Capital ventures, i.e. office equipment, machines, or vehicles;
- Projects located outside of Santa Barbara County.
Guidelines
- Actively support anti-discrimination based on race, sex/gender, age, religion, language spoken, or immigration status;
- Actively support communities marginalized by power structures to engage in dialogue and actions that seek to counter social injustice;
- Actively work to improve the rights of workers and their families whose living conditions have been marginalized;
- Promote the cultural life of underserved communities and support the activities of cultural workers;
- Promote self-determination and leadership development in low income and disenfranchised communities;
- Promote Global peace and organize locally for just policies;
- Work on building coalitions to enhance improving environmental justice and address climate change, especially organizing a constituency usually without access to decision-makers
- Engage in collaborative action and coalition-building to strengthen movement ecosystems; Work against community violence and actively support recovery and restorative justice activities and initiatives;
- Operate in a democratic manner, responsive to and directed by the constituency being served.
Important
- You will need to create a free Submittable account or sign in with Google or Facebook credentials in order to submit to a grant application.
- Before you start the application you will be directed to complete an eligibility form. This is to ensure that the FUND is a good match for your project and that you understand the FUND’s funding guidelines and priorities.
- They will follow-up with you about your submission by email. Please be sure to whitelist notification emails from Submittable and check the email you used to sign up for your Submittable account regularly.
- Their grants platform works best on Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Internet Explorer is not supported. Please make sure you are using a supported browser.
- When submitting your application please expect any and all technical difficulties. They do not recommend working on your application close to the deadline.
- Check out the Submitter Resource Center for help videos and articles or to reach out to Submittable’s Customer Support team with any technical support questions.
- They recommend that you start your application early and work on a separate Word document to ensure your answers are within the word count limitations.
- While the application has an autosave feature, they encourage you to save often to ensure that your work is not lost.
They have provided a downloadable Application Checklist to follow along as you fill out your application to ensure that you submit a complete application
For more information, visit https://www.fundforsantabarbara.org/grants2021/