Fund for Santa Barbara: Emerging Need Grants

The Fund for Santa Barbara's Emerging Need Grants provide crucial support to grassroots organizations combating systemic inequities. Offered year-round until funds are exhausted, these grants aim to empower groups addressing urgent social issues that were unforeseen. With a maximum request of $5,000 and funding for up to three months, the program prioritizes collaborative efforts to foster social change in areas such as racial, economic, and environmental justice.

NOTE: Offered year round until funds are exhausted.
The FUND is committed to uplifting grassroots community organizing fighting inequities on the frontlines; groups that address systemic oppression, and leveraging community power for progressive social change. The FUND believes that significant social changes ultimately require broad participation in and democratic control of all social, political, and economic institutions.
The FUND seeks to fund groups and/or organizations at the forefront of movement building to create systemic social change in our county. The FUND provides seed grants, general support, and project grants to grassroots projects working for social change. The FUND defines social change as change that addresses the root causes, not symptoms, of social (economic, environmental, political, and racial) inequities in an effort to alleviate those inequities but also the underlying conditions and circumstances that cause and sustain them. We invite partners who align with our mission to advance movements for Economic, Environmental, Political, Racial, and Social Change to apply.
The Fund for Santa Barbara’s Emerging Needs Grant Program responds to organizing efforts that need immediate financial assistance. The situation must be one that could not have been foreseen by the organization.
Offered year round until funds are exhaustedMaximum request: $5,000 for unforseen circumstancesLength of funding: 3 months (rapid response for urgent needs)
We will consider requests in response to an issue that has just emerged or an opportunity that has just presented itself, neither of which could have been foreseen.

Eligibility

Provides funding to non-501(c)3 groups and organizations.
We Invite Applications From Groups that:Actively support anti-discrimination based on race, sex/gender, age, religion, language spoken, or immigration status;
Actively support communities marginalized by power structures to engage in dialogue and actions that seek to counter social injustice;
Actively work to improve the rights of workers and their families whose living conditions have been marginalized;
Promote the cultural life of underserved communities and support the activities of cultural workers;
Promote self-determination and leadership development in low income and disenfranchised communities;
Promote Global peace and organize locally for just policies;
Work on building coalitions to enhance improving environmental justice and address climate change, especially organizing a constituency usually without access to decision-makers
Engage in collaborative action and coalition-building to strengthen movement ecosystems;
Work against community violence and actively support recovery and restorative justice activities and initiatives;
Operate in a democratic manner, responsive to and directed by the constituency being served.

Ineligibility

We will not consider requests for:Poor planning and managementCash flow problemsDepletion of fundsInsufficient fundraising effortsWe Do Not Fund:Political campaigns that support a candidate or a political party;
Direct labor organizing;
Projects providing direct services without a social change component;
Building improvements;
Capital ventures, i.e. office equipment, machines, or vehicles;
Projects located outside of Santa Barbara County.