Rosa's Covid-19 Fund for the UK Women's Sector

Rosa would like to thank all of our donors for their incredible support last year. Here, we provide our 
Annual Report of the Trustees and audited financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2021.

About Rosa
Rosa is a grantmaking charity that funds women’s organisations working to make the UK a fairer, safer place for women and girls. We only support charities that are led by, and for, the women and girls they exist to support. Without an endowment, we rely entirely on charitable support to deliver our activities across the four nations. Over the past year, we distributed £3 million to hundreds of women and girls’ organisations across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Annual report for the year ending 31^st March 2021
Rosa’s latest Annual Report looks back an exceptional year, in which women and girls’ organisations faced unprecedented demand for their services. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, organisations continued to support women affected by poverty, inequality, sexism and racism; women facing destitution, women on low income, women whose labour is invisible and women who cannot access any support because of their precarious immigration status. Much of what they do is undervalued and under resourced – mirroring the lives of the women and girls they work with and advocate for.

Rosa continued to work tirelessly to resource and champion those organisations. Key areas of our work included:

• Responding to the impact of Covid 19
• Distributing funding to tackle poverty and improve mental health
• Addressing race and racism within the charitable sector
• Collaborating with the sector to conduct research, share learning and capacity build
• Improving our processes and building Rosa’s team

As we look toward 2022, grant-making will continue to be Rosa’s core activity and we are planning to run three grant making programmes in 2022.

Rosa will shortly be opening the new Stand with Us fund in 2022, using the half a million pounds raised by Reclaim These Streets in response to the appalling kidnapping and brutal murder of Sarah Everard. The fund will gift grants in Summer 2022 and will be used to fund organisations working to address male violence against women and girls in all its forms. Until then, Rosa is fundraising to increase the amount of money available to give in onward grants.

Rosa’s Rise Fund, for organisations led by and for Black and minoritised women, opened for applications in November 21 and we raised over £1.3million. It was developed by Trustees who are all women of colour and a ‘Critical Friends Group’ made up of women of colour working in women’s organisations across the UK. The fund will provide organisational development funding through two-year grants of up to £40,000.

In Autumn 2022/23, we plan to relaunch Rosa’s annual Voices from the Frontline grant giving programme, to help women-led organisations to launch campaigns, events and workshops that influence positive change for women and girls across the UK.

None of this work would be possible without the support of our donors and partners. We wish to thank you for your contribution to making the UK a safer and fairer place for women and girls.

Links:

• Read about the incredible work of our grantees
• Read about Rosa's Voices from the Frontline campaigning fund
• Stand with Us fund, addressing male violence against women+girls

• Rosa's Annual Review 2021 (PDF)
  

This report details the impact of coronavirus on specialist women’s organisations funded by Rosa in 2020. Thanks to your support, Rosa distributed over £1million to 72 organisations led by and for women, supporting people through the turbulent months of the coronavirus pandemic.

This is second short report detailing how the global pandemic impacted women’s and girls’ organisations across  the UK, funded by Rosa. In it, we distil the main talking points  that came up in more than 50 in-depth conversations we held  with funded organisations, with a focus on those led by and for Black and minoritised women. 

The global pandemic had a profound impact on women and  girls around the world and in the UK. It deepened existing  social, political and economic inequalities and set many  women’s and girls’ lives back decades. It profoundly exposed  and amplified disparities experienced by women and girls  from Black and minoritised communities. At the same time, across the UK the core issues impacting women and girls, as well as the women and girls sector, gained increased public visibility . News programmes, social and current affairs programmes and drama programmes across TV and radio channels all highlighted the inequalities many women and girls were experiencing. This was amplified across social media, and influenced Government agendas, and general public debates.

Rosa worked closely with the organisations it funded during this time  to understand how the pandemic affected their roles, priorities and  presence through the lens of service users, policy makers and mainstream providers. These conversations highlighted the direct impact on the  running of services, as well as on the governance and infrastructure  of women’s and girls’ organisations.

Time and time again, organisations demonstrated their capacity to innovate and adapt quickly and effectively in times of crisis to meet the immediate  and critical needs of women and girls. This was particularly apparent  in those organisations which exist on very limited funds and are led by  Black and minoritised women.

The significant surge in demand coupled with increasingly complex needs among the women and girls they support took a profound toll on the mental and physical health and wellbeing of staff within these organisations.  This will have a long-term impact on organisational sustainability.

The current funding landscape works against organisations led by and for women and girls, especially those led by and for Black and minoritised women and girls. They often find they lose out on funding opportunities to race and gender ‘neutral’ organisations and are faced with delivering complex service provision on very limited funds. This is especially true where statutory commissioning is involved.

Links:

• The full C19 report
• Examples of funded organisations

• C19Finalreport.pdf (PDF)