Where lasting change begins: ten years of campaigning by and for women and girls

This report, marking ten years of Rosa’s Voices from the Frontline fund, shows what the first six rounds of investment in women’s and girls’ campaigning have made possible.

Download the full report Where lasting change begins

Executive summary
Recommendations for funders
Case study – Karma Nirvana
Case study – Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales

Executive summary

Rosa created its Voices from the Frontline fund because it believed that campaigning and influencing deserved dedicated support. Between December 2015 and February 2025, across 151 grants totalling £708,376, Voices from the Frontline supported 132 women’s and girls’ organisations across the UK to campaign for change.

 

The organisations funded through the programme have contributed to nine momentous law and policy changes, including the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland, a ban on virginity testing and hymenoplasty across the UK, new flexible working rights in England, Scotland and Wales, and Wales’s first 10-year Women’s Health Plan. Taken together, those changes alone have affected at least 13 million women and girls across the four nations.

But policy and law changes are not the only measure of success. The report makes clear that progress is not linear. Some of the most significant impact – the policies changed, rights won, lives positively impacted – happens because campaigns bring women together to raise public and professional awareness about critical issues affecting women and girls, train professionals, build coalitions and give survivors a platform.

A police officer or midwife retrained thinks differently for decades. A coalition formed around one election campaign becomes the infrastructure for the next. A survivor supported to challenge unjust systems remains empowered. A group of women brought together by their desire for change gain connection and mutual support. These outcomes do not always appear in monitoring reports, but they are where lasting change begins.

What this fund demonstrates, above all, is that investing in women’s and girls’ organisations to do campaigning and influencing can be highly effective. The organisations in this report include national policy bodies with decades of campaigning experience and small, grassroots groups that applied to the Voices from the Frontline fund with no previous campaigning experience but a strong idea and the commitment to pursue it.

What they have in common is that, when trusted with the right kind of funding, there is the potential for real change at a remarkable scale relative to the size of the investment.

Download the full report Where lasting change begins

 

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Nine law and policy changes

• The first government commitment to a Mother and Baby Unit in Northern Ireland, due to open by 2028/29, Action on Postpartum Psychosis
• Decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland, Alliance for Choice
• Wales’s first 10-year Women’s Health Plan, Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales
• A dedicated endometriosis nurse in every Welsh health board, Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales
• A statutory definition of Honour Based Abuse, Karma Nirvana
• A ban on virginity testing and hymenoplasty, Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation
• New flexible working rights, Pregnant Then Screwed
• Recognition of economic abuse in four government strategies, Surviving Economic Abuse
• The largest coalition of women’s organisations ever assembled in the UK, The Fawcett Society

What’s special about the Voices from the Frontline fund?

Grant holders name four qualities of the Voices fund that made the difference:

• it is flexible, adapting to what a campaign needs rather than imposing fixed conditions;
• it is collaborative, building sustained connections between Rosa and the organisations it backs;
• it is accessible, with a video application process designed to open the fund to organisations with limited resources and infrastructure;
• and it is bold, Rosa is willing to go first, backing campaigns before they have proof of concept and at the moment that backing matters most.

The political context in which this report is published makes the case for this kind of funding more urgent. Rights won over decades are under threat. The funding landscape for campaigning and influencing work is difficult. And the organisations best placed to defend and advance women’s rights, particularly Black and racially-minoritised women, are those least likely to secure the funding they need to do it.

Download the full report Where lasting change begins

Recommendations for funders

Rosa’s call to funders is direct:

• Invest in women’s and girls’ organisations to drive change. And invest right across the range of organisations that make up the women and girls sector, including both national policy-focused campaigning organisations and local grassroots organisations working on the frontline, because work and connections at different levels are crucial to effecting sustainable change.
• Accept uncertainty and accept that change is non-linear and can take years. Recognise that a policy or legislative win is not the end, but often the beginning of a new phase of changemaking work.
• Trust that the organisations closest to the communities most affected know what needs to happen. When you do, the evidence in this report shows what becomes possible.
• Work with Rosa. If you want to see change at community and national level for women and girls, Rosa is a route to do this. Voices from the Frontline remains the only fund dedicated to this work, with a unique approach which is accessible and deeply connected to the women and girls sector.

Download the full report Where lasting change begins

Webinar

At our report launch webinar on 1 October we heard from Rosa Chief Executive Rebecca Gill and report author Naami Padi, plus powerful case studies from three Voices from the Frontline grant holder organisations: Karma Nirvana, Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales and BelEve. Catch up with the recording below.