The National Grassroots Organizing Program offers two-year flexible, general operating support grants of up to $30,000 per year, with an average grant size of $20,000 per year, to small, non-profit grassroots constituent-led organizations throughout the United States and its territories and that are not located in the state of Vermont.
Donor Name: Ben & Jerry’s Foundation
State: All States except Vermont
County: All Counties
Territory: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: Ongoing
Size of the Grant: $20,000- $30,000
Details:
The Foundation will consider proposals from grassroots, base-building organizations that are working to help themselves and their communities create broad systems change through community organizing campaigns and movement-building efforts.
The Foundation will consider proposals from grassroots, base-building organizations that are working to help themselves and their communities create broad systems change through community organizing campaigns and movement-building efforts.
Grassroots Organizing Strategies
- Community & ally outreach
- Consistent, multi-faceted efforts to recruit and engage people in your work. Examples include sharing information and resources, public forums, canvassing, workshops, tabling at events, phone-banking, and media engagement.
- Leadership development of constituents
- Investing time, training and resources to cultivate innate leadership assets within people who historically haven’t had access to civic and community engagement opportunities or positions of power.
- Constituent empowerment & decision-making
- The organization is driven by the people impacted by the problem. Constituents define core values, identify and prioritize issues, and determine the appropriate course of action to solve them.
- Popular education
- An educational technique, based on the theories of Paulo Friere, designed to raise the consciousness of its participants and allow them to become more aware of how an individual’s personal experiences are connected to larger institutional or societal problems.
- Root cause analysis
- The practice of continually peeling back the layers of a problem and asking “why?” each one exists until the root cause(s) of the issue can be identified and targeted for change.
- Power analysis
- The process of identifying which individuals or entities hold the power to make decisions that positively and negatively affect an issue.
- Campaign development
- A game plan of action including tactics, materials, timelines and their intended audiences and effects.
- Mobilizing constituents & allies
- Moving people to take specific action toward achieving a common goal. Examples include attending rallies and protests, tabling at events, testifying at hearings, contacting public officials, speaking to the media and phone-banking.
- Coalition building
- Partnering with other organizations that have allied missions and interests with the goal of creating power in numbers.
- Non-violent direct action (NVDA)
- Public forms of protest for the purpose of demonstration, obstruction or dissent.
Eligible Applicants
To be considered for funding, each applicant organization must:
- Have an annual operating budget under $350,000
- Use grassroots, base-building organizing campaigns as the primary strategy for creating social change
- Be a non-profit 501(c)3 status, or have a fiscal agent with this status
- Be U.S.-based and U.S.-focused
For more information, visit BJF.
