We will fund movements, collectives, community groups and organisations led by people 16 - 35.

Social movements, campaigns, community organising and advocacy that is led by young people - particularly those from affected communities.

Research, think tanks, support services, political parties, education, youth development programs. We are open to funding organisations that engage in research, services, youth development and education but it shouldn’t be the primary focus of the proposal.

The pūtea for this fund is from Quatro Trust.

Approximately 92% of our funds goes to movements and movement leaders, 6% to hui and 2% to admin.

We are deeply committed to keeping our costs low so that more of the money we have access to is put into the hands of movements. We do this by utilising off-the-shelf tech solutions such as Squarespace (for this website) and Typeform (for our applications). We save money in advertising by taking a networked and relational approach to spreading the word about our kaupapa.

Our committee members were paid $10,000 each with $8,000 going to their movement and $2,000 to them personally. Some of our committee members opted to volunteer their time and gave their $2,000 to the kaupapa they represent. There was also approximately $20,000 in set-up costs for this fund.

We have allocated $60,000 for hui over the next four years because we believe strong relationships and whakawhanaungatanga are key to our collective success.

Our finances are fully transparent and available on Open Collective here: https://opencollective.com/youth-movement-fund

This fund is grounded in the idea that better decisions will be made about how we fund our movements if those decisions are made by movement leaders, organisers and builders. As such, we have established a committee of 14 activists who work across the various kaupapa our fund focuses on. This committee will make the decisions about who we fund.

Due to the small size of the progressive movement and the lack of funding for movements, our committee will not be excluded from applying for any of the grants, only asked to step away from any decision that involves them or their organisation.

Our rōpū have been meeting regularly to discuss how we will work together. Through those zui we have landed on the following principles and values that guide our mahi:

• We prioritise whakawhanaungatanga

• We work to make things accessible

• We know that we are ultimately all in this together

• We are willing to lean into complexities and hard conversations

• We make time to reflect, rest and recharge

• We are mana-enhancing in our approach, even when we disagree. Criticism, when provided, is constructive and compassionate

• We are led by our shared values and vision for the world

• We acknowledge the power we have

• We are generous in our assumptions and act in good faith

• We work to recognise and manage our triggers

• We practise deep listening to understand one another

• We value each other’s time, expertise and experiences

• We take a broad understanding of what is meant by ‘social movements’ and ‘activism’

• We understand that we all have knowledge, strengths and gaps

• We see oppression as intersectional, not hierarchical

• We are willing to change our minds and positions

• We acknowledge where expertise lies and that our rōpū doesn’t cover everything

• We actively resist competition, comparison and false urgency

• We acknowledge and name our biases and conflicts of interests

• We think about the bigger picture of our movements

• We value sharing culture and knowledge

Our committee has decided to make our funding decisions by consensus. When we aren’t able to reach consensus, we ask each other what is needed for agreement to be reached, we take our time and we hear out everyone’s whakaaro. We value curiosity, no shame questions and robust mana-enhancing discussions. We are willing to bring in external facilitation support when needed to resolve conflict or disagreement.

If a committee member (or their organisation) has applied for funding, that committee member will not be part of the decision-making but can be part of the discussion. This is because we value their kaupapa expertise.

We prioritise whakawhanaungatanga and relationships and we take a high-trust approach to funding people not fixed outcomes. We know social change requires long-term and flexible funding.

For multi-year grant recipients, we will facilitate a zui once every six - 12 months where grantees will be asked to share the outcomes of their mahi, their learnings and the challenges they see. This will allow the organisations to build relationships and see collective opportunities for change.

For one-off grants, an end of project report will suffice. We will accept this report in a variety of ways e.g. video, audio, report, oral, phone call, Zoom, presentation. We will ask recipients if this can be made public or at least shared with other grantees to encourage cross-movement knowledge exchange.

We organise hui on an annual basis to nurture strong relationships across movements and encourage knowledge sharing.

No! We are more interested in funding communities with good ideas and strong relationships than we are particular legal entities or organisational structures.

We are looking for youth-led movements, collectives or communities who take organised action to build collective power, transform systems and create new futures. In particular we are looking for:

• A collective vision, dream or imagining for the future

• An articulation of how you think change will happen, what your movement will do to achieve it and how you will know if it’s working

• Ideas that have the potential to become transformational

We are especially interested in funding:

• People with lived experience of the kaupapa they work on

• Movements that are intentional in their efforts to build power across difference

• Ideas that are innovative. We understand systems change requires experimentation

• Strategies that strengthen and nurture connections and relationships within movements - we think this is particularly important after years of lockdowns and the pandemic

• Things that are good for movement health e.g. initiatives that support wellbeing or up-skilling in facilitation, mediation and conflict resolution

That said, we know we do not have all the answers and so we are ultimately interested in your analysis of what the world needs and how your idea will meet that need <3

You can send Te Raukura O’Connell Rapira an email on teraukura@youthmovementfund.org.nz and they will do their best to connect you with someone on the committee who can answer your question! You can also book a time to kōrero with them here: https://calendar.app.google/KeQg9W64CjDeWebu6