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Grassroots leaders are being encouraged to apply for GivingTuesday’s global learning and fellowship programme – The Starling Collective, which offers coaching, shared learning and micro grants of $2,000 USD to support leadership development or accelerate on-the-ground work. Applications are open until 01 September 2021.
The Starling Collective is a learning community and innovative fellowship programme for grassroots organisers, activists, artists, and changemakers, which aims to discover and share best practices for increasing generosity and driving systems change. The programme, which first launched in the spring 2020, offers coaching, peer learning, and connection to GivingTuesday’s global community of movement leaders. It focuses on local community leadership, which organisers believe will be ‘critically important’ for meeting the high level of needs exposed during the pandemic, and to help communities rebuild and recover.
Asha Curran, GivingTuesday CEO, says:
“We continue to see extraordinary leadership arising from within communities. Individuals are organising grassroots efforts, mutual aid networks, and other community care activities to meet needs and provide healing. Much of this work is taking place beyond the bounds of traditional nonprofit organisations, yet it remains critically important for a thriving and connected society.”
“Too often this kind of proximate leadership is underrecognised and undersupported. We created the Starling Collective as a way to celebrate and support these leaders while also breaking down common barriers that leave diverse voices and nontraditional movement builders on the sidelines.”
GivingTuesday is calling for applications for the 2021 cohort of the Starling Collective. Selected applicants will not only be awarded micro grants and access to the learning and fellowship community, but they will have the opportunity to pitch for additional funding at the end of the programme. The successful applicants will be announced in early October.
The 2020 Starling Cohort
The Starling Collective connects leaders from around the world through skill-building, coaching, and peer-learning in a collaborative and supportive community of diverse grassroots changemakers. In 2020, nearly 2,000 applications were submitted, from which 50 grassroots leaders were selected from 29 countries, ranging in age from 11 to 71. These leaders have created extraordinary impact creating new systems to combat food insecurity in Brazil, using art to fight racial injustice in the USA, raising awareness for disability rights in South Africa, using technology to increase blood donations in Kenya, promoting a global campaign to end child labor, and more.
