Month: December 2018
2018 Movement R&D Fund Grantees
2018 Movement R&D Fund Grantees
Movement R&D Fund
We are thrilled to announce the 2018 Movement R&D Grants!
This cycle we received over 500 initial surveys and over 300 groups were invited to apply. We funded 34 groups doing a wide variety of bold, envelope-pushing work. Each group received a grant of $25,000 to support their work.
Congratulations to the 2018 grantees!
About the Movement R&D Fund
for Movement Innovation
Our Pooled Giving process is one of the ways we take collective action as a community. Through this fund, we support Movement R&D: the upstart, innovative experiments in movement-building. Silicon Valley knows that breakthroughs emerge when there is space to be creative and try new things, and thus, by pooling our resources, we provide risk capital for leaders on the ground striving to create social change. Click on the links below to learn more about our grantees.
2018
This year we are testing a new process that we hope will save valuable time for movement leaders and help narrow the applicant pool for our review committee. The application process will start with a brief eligibility survey for everyone who is interested in applying for a grant. The survey is intended to allow greater opportunity to those whose work most aligns with the Movement R&D grant criteria and priorities.
STILL HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE APPLICATION PROCESS? Read our FAQ section here!
If you have any questions, please reach out to our Program Director, Janis, at [email protected]. If you would like to be added to our mailing list to receive updates on this cycle, please email [email protected].
Movement R&D Basic Eligibility Criteria
Focused on Organizing for Change
Must be rooted in, emerging from, or in direct relationship to organizing efforts – i.e. building leaders and people power in pursuit of transformative structural change.
Leadership from Marginalized Communities
Must include the leadership of communities most impacted by injustice, including but not limited to: people of color, Indigenous peoples, migrants, Muslims, low income people, women, youth, queer, trans, or gender nonconforming people, and people with disabilities.
Bold New Ideas or Experiments
The Movement R&D Fund seeks to support new attempts to explore solutions or problems that face movements – which could come from either existing or new organizations, leaders, or projects. The Movement R&D Grant is not intended to support the general operations of organizations.
Wide Impact
Projects should have an eye towards movement-wide impact. This could mean projects are potentially replicable and the learnings will be shared, or it could mean that the project is an attempt to organize at a massive scale. We are looking for big potential to advance entire fields of work.
Has Not Received a Movement R&D Grant in the Last Two Years
Only applicants who have not received a grant from the Movement R&D Fund in the last two years will be considered.
2018 Movement R&D Fund Priorities
Immigrant Justice
We affirm the urgent needs currently facing immigrant communities around the nation. We see the current levels of mass criminalization, detention and deportation of migrants as being part of a long history of xenophobia and racialized immigration policy and practice in the United States. The Movement R&D Fund seeks proposals that reflect innovative, bold and experimental immigrant justice organizing that is working to resist the root causes of migrant criminalization.
Justice for Muslim Communities
We know that Muslim communities face ever-increasing violent and normalized structural and institutional Islamophobia that includes mass surveillance, the Muslim Ban, hate crimes, the carceral state, and the erosion of civil and human rights. The Movement R&D fund seeks proposals that foster innovative Muslim community power-building to resist state violence especially by those in the margins who push forward an intersectional lens in their work.
Black and Native Land Justice: Reclaiming Ties and Relationship to Land
It is critical for us to change the way our society envisions land, ownership, housing rights, and sanctuary. From unjust borders to rapid gentrification across U.S. cities to the promise of 40 acres and a mule to the stealing of Native land, our movements and lives are tied together by the basic human right to home, safety, community, and things that physically and spiritually tie us to place. As members of the family of living creatures on this earth, we also have the responsibility of caring for the land, providing a healthy home for all, and producing sustenance for ourselves. The Movement R&D Fund seeks proposals that aim to reclaim, repair, or reimagine our ties to land and boldly move the needle towards Native sovereignty, reparations, affordable housing, sanctuary, environmental justice, cooperatives, and community ownership of land.
Making Movements More Strategic and Imaginative
Every movement moment presents new challenges and learning opportunities. New and long-time organizers are adapting, experimenting, and thinking in new ways about how to organize, mobilize, and win. The Movement R&D Fund seeks proposals that show the potential to train and support leaders from across movements to expand their imaginations, strategize in new ways, and apply new organizing tactics to their work.