By Rebecca Gill | Executive Director
The global pandemic created a crisis for many charitable organisations - a surge in demand but not an immediate increase in income. This was particularly challenging for organisations led by and for women and girls in the UK and around the world.
Rosa responded to that challenge immediately. We understood that the organisations we invest in were already experiencing ongoing and significant challenges with funding. Many are working with (or on behalf of) women and girls with complex needs who face multiple barriers to accessing adequate support or resource. The pandemic exacerbated long established health and wealth inequalities across the UK.
Rosa's Covid19 Response Fund was overwhelmed with requests for funding - receiving 300 applications in 10 days. We awarded small grants to 72 women's and girls' organisations. The first round of funding provided up to £10,000 (British Pounds) to each organisation which we paid in the summer of 2020. We then distributed a final round of funding to 65 of the 72 organisations in March 2021, with each organisation awarded up to £7000.
Alongside this grants programme, we also ran a Fund dedicated to supporting organisations led by and for Black and minoritised women and girls providing frontline support to address domestic violence. We awarded 27 grants through that programme in the summer of 2020. Based on the findings of that programme, we are building a new fund which will support organisations led by and for Black and minoritised women and girls across the UK working on a whole range of themes. We have so far raised almost £500k and are hoping to increase that to £800k by the middle of 2021.
We have also been awarded £1.7m in funding by the UK Government to distribute to women's and girls' organisations working to address women's mental health and economic inequality. We are running this fund- the Women Thrive Fund - in partnership with Smallwood Trust, another UK funder of the women and girls sector.
Rosa is a small organisation with huge ambitions. We are continually seeking to address the underfunding experienced by organisations led by and for women and girls, either through raising and awarding funding ourselves or by supporting others to do the same. The global pandemic has had a devastating impact on the lives of women and girls around the world - the full effects are not well understood yet. This is as true in the UK as it is anywhere else. But the pandemic also exposed inequalities in health and wealth which had been growing for decades. All of the funding we receive is invested in addressing these inequalities in the UK. We are extremely grateful to everyone who has supported our work over the last twelve months and we look forward to updating you about our work in the future.
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