In 2022, we ran two funding round which granted £80,000 pounds to 80 groups. These grants continue to support the ongoing work that resists the systemic violence affecting communities.
We also recruited a new Core Group with 4 new CG members joining the strategic team.
Although we didn't conduct an in-person Radical Sharing Forum, we held virtual spaces for groups to meet, introduce themselves and collaborate
Annual Report for Year Ending Jan 31st 2023
Principal Activities
Grants
In 2022, Edge Fund resumed its regular funding rounds as the most intense period of the pandemic ended. We ran two funding rounds during the year, distributing £40,000 per round and continued to receive donations that made these funding rounds possible.
In the current context, the cost of living crisis was central to the applications received, noting down that groups may want to pay core costs such as the renting of spaces, travel and food as part of their activities. We received 52% more applications in the second round of the year compared to the first as well as 107% more eligible applications.
We recruited more scorers to have better scrutiny in the second round. Both funding rounds were done online, as the risk of COVID spread was still imminent and affecting the health of both members and staff.
Funding round 13 May-June 2022
We were glad to receive 151 applications for the first funding round of the year, although only half of these were eligible groups, meaning that they align with Edge’s values and meet the requirements set in the call for applications. We were excited to fund groups doing general systemic change work, followed by racial, queer, migrant and disability justice.
Regions: We funded a majority of the Scottish groups who were eligible, followed by groups in London and the North West of the UK.
Scrutiny: We recruited twelve scorers and applications were scored by at least two scorers.
For more information about these top 40 groups, follow this link.
Funding round October-December 2022
In this funding round we received 229 applications, where more than 65% were eligible applications. As the table below shows, granted groups were doing intersectional work focusing mainly on migrant, working class and disability justice. We were also glad to have received more applications from sex worker justice groups. In this funding round we carried out a radical sharing forum online with granted groups, which provided an opportunity for groups to meet and share updates on their work.
Regions: We funded a majority of groups that had UK-wide branches, followed by groups in South England and North England. We received more applications from Ireland and Wales compared to the last funding round.
Scrutiny: We recruited 19 scorers, and each application was scored by 3 scorers.
For more information about these top 40 groups, follow this link.
Edge Fund’s membership engagement
Collaborative work is critical to Edge Fund. This takes place mainly through the work done by our Core Group and our Regional Organisers, but also through the different Working Groups where members of Edge Fund engage in the discussion, planning and operation of different proposals and tasks.
Edge Fund’s Core Group
Over the past months Edge Fund’s Core Group went through different changes. In September we had an important change in the composition of this group as we gave our farewells to CG members Louise Foreman and Mark Brown, who served as members of this strategic group for more than 3 years. There was a major overhaul in the composition of the group which is now formed by our founder and most long standing member Patrick Boase, and the additions of Margarita Rebolledo, Nehanda Sankofa and Mijael Jiménez.
The lack of organisational development caused the unexpected departures of new members Siana Bangura, Adetola Adeniran and Peter Slavid. The Core Group is now in the process of reviewing how to restructure and manage the Edge Fund, our Regional Organisers and Working Groups. This process will help towards reestablishing consistent communication with our membership, so as to keep them informed and, for some, active in Edge Fund.
Staffing Working Group
The Core Group has as main responsibility to overview the work of the organisation and make sure it fulfills its mission and lives up to its values. As part of this aim, the Core Group created a Staffing Working Group which is now responsible for coordinating the work that our Regional Organisers take for the operation of our funding rounds, communication and membership engagement.
Funding Working Group
The funding working group formed of seven Edge Fund members meets every other month and more regularly when we enter our funding round periods. In our recent meetings we have made space to reflect on our work and the organisation needs to make our funding rounds a more enriching experience. We want to improve the experience for applicants submitting their proposals, for our Regional Organisers coordinating the funding rounds, and for the scorers evaluating applications.
Among the revision of our model of work, we are committed to improving our communication with past and potential applicants and working on more inclusive models of communication, submitting and reviewing proposals for funds.
In our past funding round we were able for the first time to compensate scorers for their time reviewing applications. As are supported by scorers with lived experience in the areas of social change we fund, we are aiming at gathering more funds as part of our annual budget to grant them compensation for their work in scoring applications in the future. We are also aiming to improve internal communication and offer additional support to our scorers during the consideration of applications, including a buddy system.
Influencing Funders Working Group
The IFWG is formed by members at Edge who work on key activities to bring Edge’s values on Participatory Grantmaking to mainstream funders. Recent activities from the IFWG included presenting Edge’s work at Impact on Urban Health at the Guys and St Thomas Foundation, which tackles health inequalities and regularly meets with organisations in the Participatory Grantmaking community in order to share practices, experiences and learnings.
Among the members of the IFWG, we want to express our recognition to Rose Longhurst, who is now leaving the group and Edge Fund. We are forever grateful to Rose, who is one of the original founders of Edge. We thank her for her constant work, advocacy and advice. Her care and love was at work in different positions, first as Core Group member and then being a critical voice at the IFWG. Since 2013, she has advocated for Participatory Grant Making, the funding model that Edge Fund subscribes to and practices, seeking to place power in grassroots groups instead of those distributing their wealth.
AGM
Our 2022 AGM took place on Saturday 6th of August. With COVID-19 still being a risk to many, we had to run our event virtually, but as with many other cases in the last year this somewhat increased accessibility and the scope of who could join. We gave a summary of what had been planned during the year and we also welcomed some entertainment to make the day that bit more special, with spoken word by Carlos Mauricio and music by Jamie. We also welcomed our new Core Group members. Our AGM presentation can be found here. Details for our 2023 AGM will be shared in our coming newsletter. For updates on this and other aspects of the work of Edge please follow us on our social media, or email us at [email protected]
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