Bread & Roses Community Fund believes in change, not charity. We organize donors at all levels to support community-based groups in building movements for racial, social and economic justice. We support movements and their leaders through fundraising, grantmaking, capacity building, and convening.
Bread & Roses makes grants to organizations that use community organizing to create sustainable social change.
What do we mean by community organizing?
We define community organizing as community-led collective action aimed at shifting the balance of power between community members and policy makers and making changes in policies or practices at the institutional or systems level. Examples of community organizing include:
- Civil disobedience
- Mass protest
- Mobilizing community members to voice community concerns by attending meetings with or writing letters, sending emails, and making phone calls to public officials
- Mobilizing community members to pressure individual public officials to change their position on an issue
- Hosting town hall meetings and conducting listening projects or using other methods to gather community input on a particular issue with the intention of building a base of community members and taking collective action to create change at the policy or institutional level
- Training community members to disrupt harmful practices that government or corporate entities are using to maintain the existing system
- Creating alternatives to existing government or corporate systems or practices that are harmful and making those alternatives available in ways that have a measurable impact on the larger community
- Providing space for political education that builds the leadership and skills of members of an affected community, enabling them to analyze harmful systems, develop strategies for social change, and take collective action to create sustainable social change
Who is eligible to receive a grant?
Organizations must meet all of the following basic requirements to be eligible for a grant from Bread & Roses:
- Must be located in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Camden counties
- Must be designated by the IRS as a 501(c)3 organization or have a fiscal sponsor that is designated by the IRS as a 501(c)3 organization or have documentation of a pending 501(c)3 application with the IRS
- Must be current with all progress reports from previously awarded Bread & Roses grants
- Must submit a complete application prior to the deadline (because of the volume of applications we receive, we cannot make exceptions)
- Must be using community organizing to create sustainable social change
Additional eligibility criteria are listed within the description for each fund. Organizations can apply for a grant in every fund for which they are eligible. Organizations can receive up to $50,000 total in grants from Bread & Roses within a 12-month period.
Bread & Roses makes grants to organizations that have a long-term vision for social justice and engage in strategies that promote sustainable social change, including:
- A focus on community organizing and activism (not social service, self-help, or educational programs)
- A clear understanding of the root causes of the problem or issue that they are working to resolve
- A vision that emphasizes changing the systems that create or perpetuate the problem or issue being addressed
- A strategy that includes building a local base for taking collective action by the community affected by the problem or issue and results in concrete outcomes at the neighborhood, city, state or national level
- Leadership that is primarily composed of people most affected by the problem or issue that is being addressed
Bread & Roses does not make grants for:
- Direct service work/social services, self-help/empowerment programs, educational programs, or advocacy
- Research
- Capital campaigns or building projects
- Scholarships, fellowships, or grants to individuals (except through the Lax Scholarship Fund)
Overview of Fund
The West Philadelphia Community Fund is a one-time fund that will make $500,000 in grants to movement organizations in the West Philadelphia community. The West Philadelphia Community Fund will make one-time grants to community-based groups in two tracks:
- Community Organizing - Community organizing to create systems change that builds resilience and improves the quality of life in the West Philadelphia community.
- Mental Health and Wellness - Providing culturally responsive, community-based mental health and wellness services in the West Philadelphia community to individuals impacted by the police violence that occurred on May 31, 2020.
The West Philadelphia Community Fund will award grants of $15,000 to groups doing community organizing and grants of $20,000 to groups providing mental health and wellness services. Applicants can apply to only ONE track.
Track 1 – Community Organizing: Community organizing to create systems change that builds resilience and improves the quality of life in the West Philadelphia community by having a long-term vision for social justice and engaging in strategies that promote sustainable systems change, including:
- A focus on community organizing and activism that aims to shift the balance of power between community members and policy makers to make changes in policies or practices with broad applications at the institutional or systems level.
- A clear understanding of the root causes of the social justice problem or issue that they are working to resolve.
- A vision that emphasizes changing the systems that create or perpetuate the social justice problem or issue being addressed.
- A strategy that includes: 1) building a local base for taking collective action by the community affected by the social justice problem or issue; and 2) results in concrete outcomes in policies or practices in the West Philadelphia community.
- Leadership that is primarily composed of people most affected by the social justice problem or issue that is being addressed.
- Work that is not eligible for this track includes direct service work/social services, self-help/empowerment programs, educational programs, litigation, or advocacy.
Track 2 – Mental Health and Wellness: Providing culturally responsive, community-based mental health and wellness services to individuals regardless of insurance status, who are impacted by the police violence that occurred on May 31, 2020.
- Mental wellness is defined by the Global Wellness Institute as “an internal resource that helps us think, feel, connect and function; it is an active process that helps us to build resilience, grow and flourish. Mental wellness has several dimensions: thinking, feeling, connecting and functioning.”
- Mental health and wellness services may include programs that are wholistic, communal, cultural and spiritual (e.g., healing circles; meditation, mindfulness, and mind-body practices; play, making and creating). This may also include professional wellness services (e.g., licensed individual/group therapy)
Application Deadline
The deadline to apply for the West Philadelphia Community Fund is 11:59 p.m. on October 6, 2023. To be considered for funding, proposals must be complete and submitted on time. Because of the volume of applications we receive, we cannot consider incomplete or late applications.
Eligibility Criteria for West Philadelphia Community Fund
For the purposes of this fund, West Philadelphia is defined as neighborhoods that are west of the Schuylkill River and located within the following zip codes: 19131, 19151, 19139, 19104, 19143.
- Must be located in Philadelphia and organizing within West Philadelphia (Track 1) or providing mental health and wellness services to residents of West Philadelphia (Track 2).
- Must be designated by the IRS as a 501(c)3 organization or have a fiscal sponsor that is designated by the IRS as a 501(c)3 organization.
- Must be current with all progress reports from previously awarded Bread & Roses grants.
- Must submit a complete application prior to the deadline. Due to the prospective volume of applications we receive, we cannot make exceptions.
- Must apply for a grant in only one of the two tracks: Community Organizing or Mental Health and Wellness.
- Priority will be given to organizations whose leadership is primarily composed of people most affected by the social justice problem or issue that is being addressed, particularly for work that supports Black people, poor people, long-term West Philadelphia residents, and young people.
Application Process Suggestions
- We suggest you review the entire application before filling it out. If you find a hard copy helpful, you can print one using the print function in your web browser.
- You can save your application and return to edit it as long as you do not submit your application. Once you hit submit, you will not be able to make any changes.
- Please fill the charts in as completely as you can. If you don't have the information we're requesting, enter "0" in that box for your application to be considered complete.
What Happens After You Hit Submit
- Bread & Roses staff will screen all the proposals to make sure that they meet our eligibility requirements.
- Community Grantmaking Committee members will review proposals individually and use a democratic decision-making process to select groups that will be recommended for funding.
- Recommendations for grants made by the Community Grantmaking Committee will be presented to the Bread & Roses Board of Directors for final approval.
- Grant award announcements will be made in January 2024.
Opportunity Fund grants are intended for special projects or emergencies that are not part of an organization’s ongoing work. These activities are frequently in response to rapidly emerging issues and might include: demonstrations and rallies, coalition efforts, conferences, or forums.
The Opportunity Fund makes grants to groups that:
- Meet all basic eligibility requirements and funding criteria
- Are facing an emerging issue, project, or situation that is not part of the organization’s ongoing work
- Have not received an Opportunity Fund grant within the past 12 months*
*12 months from when the application was submitted
Grants range from $50 to $1,000. Groups who have received grants from the Opportunity Fund in the past year may not reapply in the following grant cycle.
For eligibility criteria and more information about this Fund, visit our website. Check out our list of recent grantees to see if the Opportunity Fund is right for your group.