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Reminder: The application deadline is November 15, 2019. 

The Office of Racial Justice invites United Methodist Women members and groups to apply for funding to help support local organizing campaigns to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. United Methodist Women members are eligible to apply for work happening at any level of the organization, including circle, unit, district, conference and jurisdiction. United Methodist Women may also apply for funding to support work that is happening collaboratively, in coalition/partnership with other local organizations or groups, so long as such work involves substantial participation from local United Methodist Women. See below for details.

Goal of Funding Support
Advance United Methodist Women’s efforts to organize to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline by providing small-scale funding support to enable deepening of existing campaigns and/or development of new campaigns.

Available Funding Support
Consideration will be given to funding requests of $100 – $9,000. We invite each applicant to carefully consider the amount of funding needed and to document the amount and the rationale in the application. Funding is limited so please budget responsibly and request only the amount that you will need. Requests for funding support in excess of $9,000 will not be considered.

Criteria for Evaluating Applications for Funding Support
Many United Methodist Women groups are doing wonderful work in a variety of areas — awareness-building, direct services, education, Bible Study, prayer groups and more. However, this funding support is specifically designated for organizing + campaign work. Such work may also include some component of direct service provision, Bible Study, awareness-building, etc, but it must include an organizing/campaign component.

Your campaign should have a clear goal/target — e.g. a concrete change in practice or policy — connected to interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline. Campaign goals/targets may be at any level, from work changing the practice of an individual school to work on federal criminal justice policy. Campaign goals should demonstrate a healthy mix of ambition and realism.

Campaigns must show that they include the voices of directly-impacted communities in the leadership and/or decision-making process. Depending on your specific context and campaign, directly-impacted communities could include students, parents/families, currently- or formerly-incarcerated people, etc.

We will consider applications for stand-alone UMW-led work, but we strongly encourage collaborative campaign work with United Methodist Women acting in coalition with other organizations and groups to achieve a shared goal. We can best do this work by working together.

Timeline

• Application deadline – November 15
• Groups notified of funding support decisions – Early December 2019
• Selected group(s) receive funding – Mid-December 2019
• Implementation – 2020

Application Link: https://forms.gle/4Md4sY3u8vgUygY8A

All applications will be collected online via the form above. If you have questions about the application process or wish to confirm receipt of your submission, contact Emily at ejones@unitedmethodistwomen.org