Our activities in 2024 were guided by what we heard from groups during a meeting we held In November 2023, where we explored their needs and what we could do that is most useful to support them (see more). The main support they wanted was more funding given on trust and without restrictions, which can be hard to come by in the funding world. They were also keen for us to help raise more awareness of their work. 

In 2024 we put a lot more energy into raising our profile so we could more easily raise funds and awareness of the groups we support. We had stalls at Greenbank Street Festival, St Werburghs community day, Forwards Festival, Bristol Transformed, Reparations Bristol fundraiser and The Bristol Cable anniversary event.

We also organised our first public event, From the Ground Up, which was a showcase of some of our groups, including a panel discussion, performances and a display featuring summaries of the work supported. Other promotional work included going on The Cause radio show on Ujima twice (short clip from the first show), producing two videos (an intro to Redistro and a film of From the Ground Up), getting posters up at community centres, leafleting door-to-door and increasing our social media presence. Oh and we got a mention in the Guardian from author of A Flat Place, Noreen Masud! 

We also had meetings with Quartet Community Foundation, National Lottery Community Fund, Black South West Network and Voscur to better understand their services and where we fit in. We met with York Together to advise on our experience of participatory grantmaking. Two Redistro members attended a gathering of other local wealth redistribution groups in Leeds. 

In June we became a registered Community Benefit Society (previously we were unincorporated). In September we had another meeting with funded groups and others involved in grassroots groups and movements to review our criteria and application questions ahead of Round 6. The main change we made was to reduce the maximum annual income for eligible groups to £10,000. This was to make sure that we keep focused on funding local grassroots groups who would really struggle to get funds elsewhere. We also tried to make it clearer that we were looking for groups set up and led by a community most affected by inequality and that the group must be led by people with first-hand experience of the issue the group is working on. In September we opened our 6th round (more on that soon).

This was all quite a lot of work for our small team of volunteers but has been paying off slowly. We had new members join the collective which has made our work feel much more possible, and the increased profile helped us raise more funds, including from Headfirst and Old England pub (proceeds from a week-long DIY music event). 

We’ve been having some reflection time to think about other ways of raising and re-distributing funds that gets money to groups quicker, whilst being less of an admin burden. If you’d like to get involved we’d love to have you!