Roots & Routes Fund
The Roots & Routes Fund is for youth-led* organisations, who are fighting for climate justice** in England. The Roots & Routes Fund combines the funds, expertise and networks of Blagrave Trust, Co-op Foundation, the Energy Saving Trust Foundation, OVO Foundation, and Impatience Earth.
*Youth-Led: For the purpose of this fund, we are defining youth-led as organisations led by people aged 18–30. Youth-led organisations must have a minimum of 55% of their leadership within this age bracket.
**Climate justice: We understand that there are many definitions of climate justice. For the purpose of this fund, we are using the definition used by the Youth Climate Study.
“The impacts of climate change are not felt equally between rich and poor, or among older, younger and future generations. A ‘climate justice’ approach demands that actions taken to mitigate or adapt to climate change are centred on the most affected people and places. It takes an intersectional approach, recognising that climate risks can further depress social and economic outcomes for marginalised groups, including people on low incomes, women and girls, people of colour, and indigenous peoples. Often, youth climate justice action seeks systemic change, championing redistributive solutions that challenge dominant paradigms of power and economic growth.”
Approach
If you would prefer a word document of this page you can download it here.
The Roots & Routes Fund is for youth-led organisations who are fighting for climate justice in England. In its pilot phase, the Roots & Routes Fund will provide one-year grants and the maximum each organisation can apply for is £20,000 GBP.
What are the intended outcomes?
Our principal aim is that young people feel empowered and supported in taking climate justice action in ways that are meaningful for them and their communities.
Who this fund is for
Essential
- Organisations based in England with the majority of their work taking place within England.
- A youth-led organisation. This means at least 55% of your leadership are aged 18-30. If applicable, young people also occupy a majority of your organisation’s trustee or board positions.
- An organisation led by at least 55% of people who share the characteristics of communities most impacted by climate injustice, or those underrepresented in the climate justice sector.*
- Organisations that have a minimum of 3 people leading the organisation.
- Organisations that have a UK bank account, or if not, are willing to be fiscally hosted by one that does.**
- Organisations that have a group agreement or constitution in place setting out how the group intends to work together.
- Have an annual revenue of between £10,000 and £500,000.
*We believe that communities most impacted by climate justice and those underrepresented in the climate space are likely to be:
- Communities experiencing racial injustice.
- Disabled communities.
- LGBTQIA + communities.
- Working class communities.
- Women.
** By fiscal hosting we mean your organisation will share a bank account with an organisation that has one and is registered with either the charity commission or companies house. We use fiscal hosts in cases where we need to make a grant payment to a UK registered bank account. We have worked with a number of fiscal hosts and should you be offered a grant and identify that you need one, we can help you with this process once an award has been made. We are committed to paying fiscal host fees where this is applicable.
Desirable
We want to fund:
- We want to fund work that empowers young people to challenge and change the oppressive systems, processes and practices that prevent or hinder them from making their voices heard and making meaningful change.
- We want to fund projects that aspire to bring about long-lasting change.
- We want to fund projects that are bold, and seek to reimagine how systems work.
- We are open-minded as to what your project might entail, but it could include advocacy, research, training and learning, or a specific project or activity. It could be something that’s already up-and-running, or it might be an idea that you want to explore.
Who this fund is NOT for
Exclusions (not eligible):
- Education or living costs for students.
- Organisations based outside of England.
- Major capital appeals.
- Individual sponsorship.
- General appeals or circulars.
- Private limited companies without an asset lock.
- Activities to make profits for private gain.
- Religious activities.
- Party political activity – e.g projects that support or oppose a specific political party.
- Activities you’ve spent money on in the past and are now looking to reclaim costs for (retrospective costs).
- Loan repayments.
- The topping up of organisational reserves.
How to apply
Please click this link here to make an application. Deadline – 23:59 PM Monday the 2nd of June.
If you are successful with your 1st stage application, we will invite you to a call with us in June 2025 to learn more about your youth-led organisation and your climate justice work.
You can expect this call to last up to approximately 1 hour. 2 weeks in advance of your call, we will send you more information about what we will discuss so that you can prepare – we’re not here to put you on the spot. We hope to contact all applicants on the 4th of July 2025 with a decision on their application, alongside feedback for unsuccessful applicants.
Q and A
We’ll keep updating this page with additional FAQs as and when folks get in touch with us with similar questions.
Last updated: Thursday 10 April 2025 10:04 am
What funding is available?
In the pilot phase of the Roots & Routes Fund, we will be awarding grants to youth-led organisations. In our first year, we anticipate that we’ll make five grants in this round, of up to £20,000 per grant. You do not have to apply for the full £20,000.
We aim where possible and within the confines of charitable law for all awards to be offered unrestricted as standard. By unrestricted we mean that our funding can be used for core costs, such as salaries for your staff, the cost of renting your working space, general expenses such as utility bills, travel costs for your staff, materials and equipment, communications and outreach, and the costs of your monitoring evaluation and learning activities. Please note, we do not intend this list to be exhaustive.
What are your due diligence requirements?
Please see this link here
Do we have to be doing climate justice work already?
We are happy to support existing youth-led organisations that are trialling new climate justice initiatives, ideas at an early stage, and organisations that want to add a climate justice lens to their existing work.
I’m not sure if we are eligible to apply to the Roots & Routes Fund. How can I check this?
We are holding a launch webinar for you to ask any questions on 28th of April between 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM. Register here
What are your reporting requirements?
If you are successful we will meet with you in-person or virtually 4 times during the year to understand your progress and support you. We will not be expecting you to produce a written report for us, but if you choose to, in line with IVAR principles of better reporting, you can show us a report you have already produced for another funder that you think supplements the narrative of your work.
Alongside this we will be working with a storyteller to help you capture your learning and achievements as well as to help us evaluate the funding style of the programme.
Will there be any support as well as funding?
Yes, we aim to provide a support offer consisting of consultancy support to help develop your organisation such as convening events and networking opportunities, wellbeing grants, capacity building, and fundraising support.
