Funded activities could be skate programs, events, or paid positions/internships for youth from communities affected by racism. The hope is that the Fund will help to direct more money, profile, and resources to support more diverse leadership within social skateboarding in coming years.

Aims

• The aim of the project should include one of the following goals:
  • Improve physical and mental well-being of disenfranchised communities
  • Promote greater racial equity in skateboarding
  • Provide access to skateboarding in underserved communities
  • Additional social elements (like connecting participants to greater art/educational/leadership opportunities through skateboarding) are encouraged but this is not essential.

Funding Information

• The Pushing Against Racism Fund will distribute a total of $30,000 USD in grants to support social skateboarding projects worldwide. They will select at least one project per continent to receive $2500 each, as well as up to 10 smaller projects around the world to receive $1000 each.  

Why does this fund exist?

• Access to funds is one of the top issues facing social skateboarding projects worldwide, particularly for smaller projects in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) or poorer communities.
• For example, in many countries, there is no access to online fundraising tools like GoFundMe or PayPal. On top of this, nonprofit organizations around the world continue to prop up institutional and structural racism. The leadership of many social skateboarding projects is mostly white — mirroring a trend in the international nonprofit sector that has historically relied on unfair practices such as unpaid interns, and paid/leadership positions being based in Global North countries.
• To respond to these challenges, the Pushing Against Racism Working Group created a fund in 2022 to financially support greater diversity and inclusion within the social skateboarding community.

Eligibility Criteria

• Geography – You can be based anywhere! You will just need to tell them which continent you are working in.
  • ​​Africa
  • Asia
  • Oceania
  • Europe
  • Americas (note: 2 “Continent grants” will be allocated to the Americas – one in North America and one South/Central America)
• The priority is to support projects with leadership by people of color or other racially/ethnically disenfranchised groups.
• They will prioritize projects serving people of color, marginalized ethnic groups, and under-served communities (such as economically disadvantaged, immigrants, refugees), as well as those addressing intersectionality (gender, sexuality, race).
• One-off events (i.e. public skatepark ‘takeovers or contests/festivals) AND programs running as long as 12 months are all eligible. They will prioritize sustainable projects that have potential to continue.
• They are open to applicants who are new to skateboarding or who have less experience creating or running projects, but all project ideas need to be well thought-out and show commitment and knowledge of the local skateboarding context to be considered.