The gigantic Glasgow Community Fund form drafting has sent me into researching how to answer questions about embedding human rights and equalities into your processes and policies. I was pointed to https://thre.org.uk/topic/funding-and-fundraising/ and I have selected the following things from it and some other reading to include in my answers.

I hope that this really dull content is balanced out by its usefulness. Scroll down for fund recommendations and a cool polar bus.

If a funder asks about how you embed or work with human rights and equalities in your organisation you could talk about:

  • referring to the FREDA principles (fairness, respect, equality, dignity and autonomy), literally by saying something like "our way of working is in line with the FREDA principles (fairness...)
  • saying which protected characteristics are the most relevant for your work and that you are in a good position to do something about - it doesn't have to be all of them! Pick from age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. 
  • having a Code of Conduct (an essential tool to be able to do something about someone not behaving in line with FREDA. (Freda is now a stern teacher in my mind. Oh well. OBEY FREDA).
  • having a clear and publicly available process for raising complaints or concerns
  • having folk involved who have lived experience with protected characteristics or other challenges who can tell you how to do stuff in a way that makes them feel included - this can be Board members, staff, volunteers, participants
  • considering protected characteristics when you are making your marketing materials, choosing your venues/times of day/month/year
  • offering training for staff in rights/equalities (you can include the fees for this training in your funding bid)
  • having or making (once they give you enough funding that folk have time to do it) a written EDI policy and action plan that collects baseline information and identifies things you can try and then whether they helped at all.

These things are concrete mechanisms, which more important than just saying "we totally believe in human rights and equalities".

Feel free to use these to structure your own answers to these types of questions. If you have died of boredom feel free to read about Ivan The Terra Bus: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/antarctica-ivan-the-terra-bus-retired?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-gb

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What I'm Working On This Week - Fund Recommendations

I was in a database and found a few good ones so flagging them up. I always love finding a new fund to apply to and this first one has a great name.

Womble Bond Dickinson - up to £5000 of project funding, charities only, especially ones in Bristol, Leeds, London, Newcastle, Plymouth, Southampton and Teesside. Medium sized form. Their accounts here show quite random amounts given to a small range of community, health and youth focused charities. A new one on me so have submitted a bid and will see! Guidelines are here.

Gosling Foundation - I love this funder. Had £10k from them a few times for youth projects. The form ask a 20 word and a 150 word question, plus a few numbers and a budget, they get back within 6 weeks. If you meet their criteria give them a go. Will fund UK CICs and charities, will fund salaries for project delivery, focus on youth and sports.

Barchester Healthcare Foundation - up to £2000 (no salaries) for projects combating isolation for older people or adults with disabilities.

Trefoil - usually around £4000-5000 for Scottish not-for-profits working with education, health, and social welfare, education, therapeutic activities for under 25s with additional support needs. This should include CICs so long as you aren't a commercial business, guidelines here. I have had a few donations from them, it's a medium form. Next deadline 25 August 2025.

There are super useful summaries of many of these funds on the free idox4community portals. See which city nearest to you has one and sign up for a free account, then check the national funding news tab. I'm signed up to the Edinburgh one but all versions will access the same national funding news.

Happy Truffling!

Phyllis, King of the Pigs