People with experience of poverty and inequity giving collectives, movements and grassroots organisations funding to address the root causes of poverty and racism, while restoring the natural world
People with experience of poverty and inequity giving collectives, movements and grassroots organisations funding to address the root causes of poverty and racism, while restoring the natural world
People with experience of poverty and inequity giving collectives, movements and grassroots organisations funding to address the root causes of poverty and racism, while restoring the natural world
People with experience of poverty and inequity giving collectives, movements and grassroots organisations funding to address the root causes of poverty and racism, while restoring the natural world
What is Regenerative Futures Fund
The Regenerative Futures Fund is a £15M ten-year, pooled spend-down fund, for Edinburgh. The fund aims to put the power of decision making into the hands of the people most often excluded from making decisions and give organisations the freedom to think and plan for the long-term.
Regenerative Futures Fund will fund 10-15 organisations over ten years and start making grants in 2024.
What is a Regenerative Future
‘...one that sees the world as built around reciprocal and co-evolutionary relationships, where humans, other living beings and ecosystems rely on one another for health, and shape (and are shaped by) their connections with one another. It recognises that addressing the interconnected social and environmental challenges we face is dependent on rebalancing and restoring these relationships’
Mission, Vision, Co-Design, Theory of Change
Mission: To give individuals experiencing poverty and inequity the power to fund diverse social movements and grassroots organisations over ten years, working with them to end poverty and racism and restore the natural world.
Fund details: The fund will resource movements, collectives and grassroots organisations with long-term, multi-year funding over a ten-year time horizon, enabling them to do the deep work needed to end poverty and racism and restore the natural world. Prior to the ten-year funding there will be a funded development phase to get movements, collectives and grassroots organisations ready to take on long-term funding.
What will be funded
Collectives, movements and grassroots organisations who are addressing the root causes of poverty and racism, while restoring the natural world. A minimum threshold of 50% of the full cohort funded organisations will have diverse leadership with a focus on anti-racism in the context of ending poverty and restoring the natural world.
They must open to working in a collective with others through a programme of shared learning and imagination activities throughout the grant.
Must be based in Edinburgh.
Collectives, movements and grassroots organisations that can demonstrate their close links with residents, and skills in community organising and activism.
Different Perspectives
Being involved in this group... it’s like oh, my views do count, they could be important, I can make a difference and I’m not as invisible as I’ve been led to believe. It’s easy to get pulled down by it all, but you then see that you are not alone. This Fund is like a beacon of hope, this could have a huge impact if it’s channelled in the right ways.
End Poverty Edinburgh Member
It was an eye-opener for me. It feels like I’m not the only one hitting my head against the wall. It gives you hope. It changed this negative view that we have sometimes about society just accepting things.
End Poverty Edinburgh Member about RFF Outcomes Mapping Day, attended by all learning groups
We must hold on to the gains which have been made and go further, building capacity and trust within organisations, between organisations and with communities. Almost ten years on from the Christie Commission there is both an absolute imperative and perhaps a greater opportunity than we have previously felt possible to shift power to communities, integrate organisations and embed prevention.
A Just Capital Report
I’m a really positive person and I see wonderful examples every day of work that is happening in communities that make a difference, but I also know that the challenges we are facing at the moment of poverty and inequality, of inequity and injustice, of nature and climate emergencies... those kinds of challenges are really of a scale that we're not quite meeting in much of the work that we're doing. So, for me, the Regenerative Futures Fund is ambitious for a kind of change that sort of meets that moment more intentionally, and resources it by bending and pulling funding together at a scale that the city's communities need.
Carolyn Sawyers, CEO Corra Foundation and member of Regenerative Futures Fund, Funders Community of Practice
Programme Set-up
& Phase One
Regenerative Futures Fund will fund 10-15 organisations over ten years and start making grants in 2024. Following an initial development phase, where grants will be awarded of up to £10,000 to around 25 organisations, 10-15 organisations will receive funding will be at a level of £50-£100K a year for 10 years.
Regenerative Futures Fund is designed to be delivered in two phases to ensure that organisations - that will include movements and grassroots organisations who have many barriers to accessing funding processes - are ready to take on long-term funding. Phase One will run from July 2024 to March 2025, Phase Two will run from April 2025 to March 2035. The ten-year portion of the fund will be focused on Phase Two.
This two-stage closed process has been designed to ensure that larger organisations - who tend to dominate funding processes as they have fundraisers, access to networks and staff within funding organisations, confidence to ask questions, and often fewer language and cultural barriers – do not dominate the application process.
Programme Phase Two
11-Year Timeline
For more information, contact:
Leah Black
Regenerative Futures Fund Lead
leah.black@evoc.org.uk