About Us
In 2008, Rosa was formed to address the acute lack of funding for the women and girls sector. Over the years, we have adapted and grown to respond to the pressing issues affecting women and girls’ safety and equity across the UK.
Our mission is to empower women and girls by distributing funding, strengthening women’s and girls’ organisations and using our voice to influence change.
The values we uphold are reflected in our work.
We ensure that we are:
Bold
We seize new opportunities, and we are not afraid to take risks in pursuit of our mission and vision.
Collaborative
We collaborate and partner to reach a common goal.
Inclusive
We value the diversity of the UK women and girls sector, and seek to represent and include the whole sector with fairness and equity in all our work.
Agile
We are a responsive funder, adapting quickly to the changing needs of the women and girls sector and of wider society.
Transparent
We strive to improve, to be open and accountable.
Who we support
We help specialist women’s and girls’ organisations access the funding and resources they need. We use our expertise and knowledge to deliver equitable and participatory grant-making for specialist organisations led by and for women and girls.
Without adequate funding, these organisations cannot survive, let alone thrive, and women and girls miss out on the services, programmes, and advocacy they need.
Women’s and girls organisations
Rosa defines women’s and girls’ organisations as those run by, for and with women and girls. This means that the organisations we fund will be governed and led by women, will have a Board of Trustees (or similar) where the Chair is a woman, and the majority of members as well as the employee leadership team are women. The principal objective of organisations we fund will be working with women and/or girls and the majority of their beneficiaries are, and will always be, women and/or girls.
Rosa believes that women’s and girls’ organisations are experts in what they do. We fund organisations that work with and for trans and non-binary people and those that don’t – we trust organisations to do what best serves the communities they work with and for. Rosa is proud of our record of funding hundreds of women’s and girls’ organisations across the UK which represent women’s and girls’ lived experience and diverse views.
Pro-choice
Rosa is proud to be a pro-choice organisation. Our vision is of a society in which women and girls are safe, healthy and equal. We believe that bodily autonomy is central to achieving that, which means all women and girls must have access to abortion services which are safe and legal. Rosa will not fund organisations which work against women’s and girls’ rights to access any form of healthcare including abortion services and we will use our assessment and due diligence processes to ensure we uphold this approach.
Find out more about our grant holders
How Rosa makes grants
Rosa’s approach to grantmaking aligns with our values, which are that we are bold, inclusive, transparent, agile, and collaborative.
Developing grants programmes
So that we respond to the current and most pressing needs facing women and girls, our programmes are developed in collaboration with women from the UK women and girls sector. We involve a broad range of organisations from across the sector in our work, especially those representing the most marginalised women and girls.
Assessment of applications
Applications to Rosa are assessed by our dedicated team of freelance assessors, many of whom have experience of working in the women and girls sector. We shortlist applications that most strongly fit the aims of each fund and those shortlisted are presented to a Grants Panel.
Grants Panel
Grants Panels discuss and select which applications to recommend for funding. It is important to us that women who understand the needs of organisations working with marginalised women and girls are represented on our Grants Panels. Panels are made up of experts primarily from the women and girls sector, sitting alongside at least two Rosa Trustees. We offer panellists an honorarium in recognition of their time and expertise.
Communicating with applicants
We always tell applicants when they will hear back from us, and we offer feedback if an application is unsuccessful.
How we work with grant holders
We trust and respect the work of our grant holders. We do not burden organisations with in-depth reporting and are mindful of the pressures they are working under. As well as supporting women’s and girls’ organisations financially, we also provide training and networking opportunities to help them develop. We remunerate women’s and girls’ organisations when they support our work through attending events, providing advice or sitting on Grants Panels.
Our simple and straightforward approach to grantmaking improves access to funding for many of our grantees. By funding women-led organisations, we improve the support available and amplify the voices of women and girls, ultimately creating real change in women’s and girls’ lives.
Read about our latest work in our Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25
Our team
The Rosa team works to support our investment in women’s and girls’ organisations, provide ongoing training, events, research and communication to build capacity across the wider sector, and to inspire investment in the women and girls sector.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI)
At Rosa, diversity, equality and inclusion are at the heart of who we are and the change we want to see. We exist to support women and girls across the UK, and we know that their lives, experiences and needs are shaped by many different forms of inequality. To be effective, our work must reflect, respect and respond to that diversity.
We are committed to building an organisation and a funding approach that are inclusive, accessible and accountable. We are using the Association of Charitable Foundations’ Stronger Foundations DEI framework to review our progress across all areas of our work. This helps us to recognise where we are making progress, where we could improve, and what practical action we need to take next.
Diversity, equality and inclusion are embedded in our organisational strategy and supported by a clear action plan, which we report on quarterly to our Board of Trustees. We are working to make our recruitment, governance, events, grant-making and communications more inclusive and accessible, including through anonymous applications, monitoring diversity across applicants, staff and trustees, and sharing key data in our Annual Report.
We are also reviewing accessibility across key parts of our work, including training, events, our annual conference and grant application processes. Where we identify barriers or gaps, we are taking action to address them. We want our panels, events and decision-making spaces to reflect the breadth, experience and expertise of the women’s and girls’ sector.
As a funder, we are committed to supporting women-led organisations working with women and girls who face the greatest barriers and inequalities. We do this through targeted outreach and partnerships with local, community and voluntary sector organisations, helping us reach groups that may otherwise be less likely to access funding.
We know that becoming more equitable and inclusive is ongoing work. We will continue to listen, learn, review our practice and hold ourselves accountable, so that Rosa can play its part in building a stronger, fairer and more inclusive women’s and girls’ sector.