At the beginning of this year we started the process of setting up our new membership structure and recruiting our first members. This included developing proposals with the input of 20 groups we’ve funded through surveys, an in-person and online meeting.

We opened for applications in April and the decision-making process involved the groups/individuals themselves reading each other’s applications to decide who should be members. Some applicants had an income over our threshold of £10,000 and one group withdrew their application as they didn’t meet the criteria around being working class-led, all other applicants were successful. We’re now happy to welcome our first official members!

Our members will be able to:

• Attend Redistro members meetings to learn from and gain support from other groups active in the local community 
• Request funds without having to complete funding applications each time
• Make decisions about how funds are distributed to members 
• Make decisions on funding applications from non-members
• Make decisions about how Redistro operates

We also have 5 associate members who can come to meetings but cannot request funds.

We have moved to this model for several reasons. Mostly, we wanted to make it easier for groups to access funding and support, and for that support to be long-term. We also kept hearing from groups that they wanted to come together more often as this can provide a lot of moral and practical support for groups with so little resources. Lastly, we wanted to put more power into the hands of our groups, not just about funding but also wider decisions on how Redistro operates (we have always invited groups to help make those wider decisions but at times it has felt more like consulting than actual decision-making).

Last year we trialled this new idea of membership through the Solidarity Collective. Over the course of 6 months six groups shared a pot of money and stayed in touch through meetings and a WhatsApp group. The main idea was to have a model that was more about relationships and support than just giving out money. It wasn’t perfect and ideally needed some more time to try it out properly but we felt we had learnt enough through it to take it on as our membership model, with some tweaks and the commitment to keep learning and changing as we need.

We’re very excited for our first members meeting on July 18th which will be a relaxed day to celebrate where we’ve got to and for everyone to get to know each other better.