Joseph Rowntree Foundation

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is an independent social change charity rooted in Quaker values of evidence, social justice, dignity, and long-term progressive reform, dedicated to accelerating a UK free from poverty where everyone thrives through equitable systems fostering agency, solidarity, liberation, and interdependence of people and planet. Their funding philosophy challenges structural inequalities concentrating resources among elites, prioritizing evidence-based systems change via co-designed partnerships with those experiencing poverty, integrating research, policy influence, advocacy, grassroots movements, and impact investments to empower lived experience voices for sustainable transformation.

They prioritize UK poverty solutions addressing income adequacy and minimum income standards, rising living costs and food insecurity, low-pay work and labour market barriers, social security reform and welfare policy advocacy, affordable decent housing and homelessness prevention, thriving cities towns neighbourhoods combating regional inequality, poverty's impacts on children young people families diverse communities including ethnic minorities, and social determinants like climate-just transitions to equitable sustainable economies. Supported activities encompass research collaborations on child family poverty, anti-poverty coalitions amplifying grassroots insights, employment training youth unemployment programs, carer support family resilience initiatives, community-led advocacy for inclusive policy, capacity building networks, movement-building against structural racism, peer support groups centering lived experience, preventative interventions tackling generational poverty cycles, and holistic person-centred investments advancing equity diversity inclusion.

They exclude funding for individuals projects outside the UK, statutory services, or non-mission-aligned activities, focusing instead on collaborative scalable models relevant UK-wide with devolved approaches in Scotland Wales Northern Ireland. Distinctive for persistent root-cause focus, anti-racist commitment, co-production with poverty-experienced leaders, independence from political influence, and blending evidence rigorous research policy advocacy community engagement, they seek grassroots charities innovators demonstrating lived experience leadership, systemic impact, and inclusive practice prioritizing children families low-income workers isolated communities ethnic minorities facing exclusion.