Spring 2024 Grow Grants: Data & Reflections

With the assistance of community grant readers and the Grantmaking Committee, Grassroots Fund has awarded $328,746 to 98 grantee groups as part of our Spring 2024 Grow grant cycle. For a list of groups who were awarded funding, please see here.

During our process, applications are evaluated based on alignment with our Guiding Practices. Among grant reviewers this round, there was critical reflection around Equity in Participation, which we describe as how an applicant “supports the fullest of all community members.” Groups showing strong alignment with Equity in Participation prioritize engagement of traditionally marginalized community groups and work to understand barriers to participation in their work.

Some ways that the Grantmaking Committee in particular thought deeply about Equity in Participation while reviewing applications this Spring included asking questions like:

• Are those most impacted by an issue already participating in the group's work? If not, how is the group working to understand and lower barriers to participation?
• How are groups thinking about lowering barriers to participation across multiple identities in their work? Equity in Participation includes intersectional identities, touching on racial justice, gender justice, and disability justice and more. It is also based on a community’s unique context.
• Beyond sharing the numbers of who is participating in the work, how are groups articulating why it’s important for their work to be reaching marginalized people in the community across identities? In other words, how do groups see participation demographics beyond a one-off checklist item and incorporate it into their ongoing reflection and strategy?

These questions and reflections are on our mind as we think about our evolving participatory process.

In addition to sharing these reflections from Grantmaking Committee members, we wanted to share a bit more data about who received funding this round. 

• 62% of grantees had annual budgets of less than $50,000

• 50% of grantees did not have 501c3 status

• 34% of grantees were from groups who are brand new to Grassroots Fund

The Grow grant application includes an optional section where applicants can share back demographic data of the group’s decision makers. This Spring, 37% of grantees included demographic data with their application. See below for a snapshot of the racial identities and ages of the decision makers for Spring 2024 Grow grantees, based on the data of those that reported.

For more data visuals regarding this Grow round, please see here.