Bristol Redistro is a wealth redistribution group that aims to transfer money from those who have it to those who don’t. We raise money from individuals and redistribute those funds to community groups challenging inequality of wealth and power. Once we have a pot of money to give out we invite previously funded groups to decide how the funds are shared out.

Bristol is a very unequal city, some people have a lot of money and others have very little. Likewise, some have a lot of power to make decisions that affect them and others, whilst others don’t. This is what prompted Bristol Redistro to be set up.

We started out in 2019 as a small group of people involved in community and political projects in Bristol who saw the need for money and resources to be redistributed more fairly. We wanted to find a way for local people to come together and pool their surplus wealth and for this to be used to support local groups facing inequality and injustice and working to create a just, equal and sustainable world. Giving away money gives people a lot of power, so we also wanted to put the decision-making into the hands of the groups that we fund. We were inspired to start Bristol Redistro by the UK-wide project Edge Fund. 

For many reasons a minority of people have more money than they need to live on. If we’re in this position, we’re encouraged to hold onto that money for ourselves and our families, rather than use it for the benefit of others. This helps maintain our unequal and unjust society. We want to challenge this individual focus and to help build a culture where it’s normal to redistribute money and resources. 

We launched our first round as a pilot in February 2020. During a meeting with the funded groups, we asked them if they would consider getting involved with Redistro and making the shortlisting decisions in the next round. This was a crunch point for us as the project couldn’t continue if the decisions were left with the founding group as this would be contrary to our aims. Thankfully, enough of the groups agreed to take part to make it possible for us to continue and we have now run 5 rounds, each with a panel of previously funded groups making the decisions on which applications are funded.