Grants

Exploring how we understand and think about the economy and how we might imagine ways to change it

We believe that the way we collectively think and talk about the economy is a barrier to our ability to see how it could be changed. It is often referred to as an independent system or likened to a force of nature, and talked about as if economics were a science that only a few highly educated individuals can truly understand. This makes us feel as though it is too big and too complicated to substantially change, all we can do is tinker with parts of it.

We want to explore a central question ‘how we can begin to shift perceptions and beliefs about the economy, about what it is and what it could be?’ The aim is to focus on how we can promote the idea that economic change is possible.

For this strand of funding we are inviting others to learn and discover with us.

This will be a one-off open call for up to 6 organisations who want to work with us over three years. At the end of the three years we hope to have generated shared learning and experiences that can further push our thinking on how to set the scene for meaningful economic systems change.

• Each organisation recruited will receive funding of £50,000 per year for three years (£150,000 in total)
• Participants can either come to us with existing work they do that is relevant to this question, or propose new activities that could help us explore this question
• In addition to delivering individual projects/activities organisations will be compensated for participating in a series of facilitated programme learning days where they will share learning and hear from external experts.

You can learn more about our thinking on this by reading our discussion piece.

Examining the way the financial system operates at the heart of our economy, how the ‘wiring’ for our economy is hidden and needs transforming.

The financial system should exist to allocate available resources to meet economic and social needs but in reality it has begun to serve itself and become more removed from the  real economy. 

Whilst some positive shifts were made within this system in response to the financial crisis of 2008, recently we are seeing a rolling back of some of that progress, meaning that work to push for a fairer and more sustainable system is having to run fast just to stay still. Through this programme of work we are seeking to reverse this and explore barriers and blockages to the creation of a fair and sustainable financial system within the system itself, such as regulations, policy ideas, power dynamics and cultures.

Supporting organisations that are central to our mission of economic systems change to create a stronger, responsive sector able to challenge those embedded norms.

We consider the ecosystem of organisations that are predominantly working on economic systems change to still be nascent with a stretched capacity. If these organisations are to develop further and hold their own as respected institutions who can challenge on economic systems change, then they need reliable support.  As one of only a few funders dedicated to this issue we recognise the need to retain our commitment to working with organisations on a long-term basis and, where possible, pulling in additional resources to support them. 

This funding strand will offer up to £150k per participating organisation over 3 years. You could chose to claim more than £50k in any one year, but the total you can claim over the 3 years cannot be more than £150k so you would then need to reduce the amounts requested over the rest of the time period.

Yes you can. Whilst we usually apply a one grant per organisation limit, this will not apply for this strand of funding.

Yes you do. We expect participating organisations to attend and contribute to the programme days and take active ownership of the programme learning as the purpose of this funding strand is to take a collaborative approach to learning more about this topic. There may be odd days that you are unable to attend but we would expect you to attend the majority.

We are happy to receive applications from more than one organisation/individual working together, but we will view this as one application and therefore the funding available will need to be spread across the partnership as the applicants feel is appropriate. We will not offer additional funding for those working in this way beyond the £150k over 3 years.

We are open to applications that feel they have a skillset that would be beneficial to other applicants working on these issues. However do please bear in mind that we are looking for a balanced portfolio of applications approaching our central question, we are unlikely to make this a major feature of the programme. If you are more interested in this approach than the programme itself do get in touch with us.