News

You are warmly invited to join Bristol Redistro’s upcoming workshop: 

‘Effective ways of responding to our privilege – how do we redistribute wealth and power?’

• Monday 25th October, 7pm – 9pm, via zoom
• Facilitated by Ryan Davey and Jay Wilkinson
• 8 places available
• Cost: free / donation to Bristol Redistro

This workshop is for people who have more wealth than they need to survive and feel uncertainty about how best it could be used. It will be an opportunity to learn and share in a non-judgmental, participatory setting, where we consider the privileges and access to resources that we have, think about how best to use them and work on breaking down our barriers to doing so.

To sign up or ask questions, please email us with WORKSHOP in the subject.

No need to live in Bristol if you’d like to attend.

It's that time again... We have just launched our latest crowdfund and we're looking for support either as donations to the crowdfund or spreading the word. Can you help please?  

The money we raise goes to small, grassroots groups set up by a community to tackle an issue they’re facing. For example, Black Mothers Matter began life as three friends on maternity leave discussing the statistics facing black women and their babies via WhatsApp. They decided to form a group to address this injustice.

The groups we fund often struggle to get financial support elsewhere. Radical Resilience Project told us "As a grassroots community group who are not registered as a charity and want to do things differently we have limited funding options". £1,000 can go a long way when you're self-funding your project or relying on small donations. 

We believe in the power of community-led groups to bring about justice for their communities and would love to get more money out to them to support their work. If you do too, please make a donation and/ or share the crowdfund with others so we can give out more grants: 
https://www.chuffed.org/project/get-behind-grassroots-social-change-in-bristol

There's more info about the groups that have received funding so far here: www.bristolredistro.org/funded-groups.html 

We're really pleased and grateful that a number of the Round 2 groups have agreed to be decision-makers for the next round, which means they'll get to decide which applicants receive money. Now we just need to raise the cash!

Feel free to email info@bristolredistro.org if you have any questions or would like to know more about how we work and who we support. 

After 2 successful funding rounds in 2020/21, 15 local groups working for grassroots social change have received grants, and a number of people have signed up to make sizeable monthly donations. The project is growing, and so the Organising and Fundraising Collective needs more support to keep it going. 

We are looking for new collective members to help with a variety of tasks:

•     Fundraising 
•     General administration
•     Media & social media
•     Website maintenance 
•     Blog posts & articles
•     Educational workshops 

We also had some great suggestions from funded groups on how we can support them better and raise more money which we want to follow up: www.bristolredistro.org/news/feedback-from-round-2

The role would not include decision making on who gets funding, as the groups themselves decide this. 

Can you spare around 2 hours per week (sometimes more, sometimes less) to help? If so, drop us a line at info@bristolredistro.org with what you’re interested in helping out with, your phone number and a good time to call for a chat. All members of the collective are volunteers.  

Hope to hear from you and please do pass on to anyone you think might be interested :)

Here are the practical process suggestions and feedback we received from the Round 2 groups. 

People liked: 

• The application form – it lets you say what you wanted to say, rather than forcing a narrative into it; open; straightforward 
• Pace – helping small groups get off the ground 
• Value of feedback – appreciate being asked for more information to support application after first submitted, plus that feedback is given to those who were unsuccessful 
• Getting to meet other groups – there are not many opportunities for this; it would be great if this could continue, and to share some resources 
• Flexibility in eligibility

Things to improve on: 

• Saturday afternoon meeting (difficult in terms of childcare) – is there a way of collaborating about timing the meeting?
• There was a suggestion that we remove names of groups in the shortlisting process to reduce the possibility of a conflict of interest; (current conflict of interest policy asks that people declare any interest and cannot be part of decision on that application) 
• More notice on when a funding round will be. This would also help with scheduling in when to help with the shortlisting process. 

We had loads of amazing suggestions about how to grow Redistro:

• Merchandise such as T-shirts that people are sent when they make a donation. This would have the Redistro name and website on it, further raising the profile of Redistro. 
• Is there scope to gain funding from companies in Bristol (with the caveat that there are ethical issues and the possibility of strings attached)?
• Keep the profile of Redistro going year-round, with a good social media presence. 
• Create networks of trust for people to learn about Redistro; (people said that they heard about Redistro through their own trusted friends and networks, and so knew it was a good grant to apply for). 

And how to support grassroots support better: 

• Regular 'networking' events, especially after the pandemic, to build connection and bring Redistro further into people's awareness. 
• Thinking about not just redistribution of money, but redistribution of other things such as spaces that people can use, skill-sharing, courses, and skills specific to applying for funding such as writing grant applications. 
• A process where groups can say what they need and then Redistro can go about trying to source it (more processes of mutual aid). 
• Support sessions as well as money e.g. shared afternoon to ask an accountant questions – something we cannot afford as individual groups but achievable when pooled. 
• Possible other topics around governance, comms and marketing (maybe Redistro would be interested in this too!) 
• Community (as well as funding) – people described it already feels like there is community, but this is not something that was clear from application information. It’s a good thing, a suggestion to make it clearer.