Needmor’s Core Grants Program provides general operating support to groups engaged in the work of community organizing.
Donor Name: Needmor Fund
State: Selected States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/30/2023
Details:
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.
Basic Criteria
- While Needmor embraces the opportunity to fund emerging organizations, their commitment remains to funding strong, effective community organizing. They seeks 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 above 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 Needmor Fund.