The Wellspring Fund
The Wellspring Fund supports multi-year projects and campaigns within BIPOC-led organizations actively working towards strengthening the ecosystem of social justice movements in Minnesota.
The Wellspring Fund
Applications for 2023 Wellspring Fund grants are currently closed.
At Headwaters, we believe that a community’s collective power is a source of abundance and of transformative change. In the natural world, wellsprings are sources of abundance that start deep in the earth, slowly breaking through rocks and creating new pathways toward growth. The Wellspring Fund is dedicated to nourishing organizations that have deep roots and long horizons.
Wellspring grants build meaningful capacity for BIPOC-led organizations to do long term power building and organizing for systems change. Grants will provide $90,000 of project-based support per year over four years, for a total of $360,000. These grants support projects that are developing innovative and impactful approaches to building community power and advocating for social change in Minnesota.
Innovation can show up in many approaches to building power to advance justice. It might be found in organizing models, narrative approaches, lifeways reclamation, coalition structures, campaign strategies, healing practices, and more. We also believe that innovative ideas do not need to be “new” to be transformative; practices that have been part of our communities for generations are powerful sources of change.
At Headwaters, we know that long-term organizing work needs to be supported by long-term funding partners that organizations can count on. The Wellspring Fund’s 4-year grant terms allow us to be in long-term relationship with grantee partners and commit to supporting the long-term visions and strategies of Minnesota’s movements for justice.
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The Wellspring Fund is Headwaters’ newest fund, in partnership with the Bush Foundation. It reflects both Headwaters’ core values and the Bush Foundation’s purpose to develop, test and spread innovative ideas that make the region better for everyone and to inspire, equip and connect leaders to more effectively lead equitable change. As one of Bush’s four community partners, Headwaters is helping Bush live into its goal to “share more power in our grantmaking and to work in deeper partnership with community.”