Digital Justice Fund
The information below is retrospective, as applications to the 2026 Digital Justice Fund have now closed. Thank you to everyone who applied. The depth, commitment and political imagination of the work shared is the horizon and deeply humbling.
Introducing the Digital Justice Fund
The Digital Justice Fund works towards nurturing an ecosystem where groups resisting violent technological harms and imagining more nourishing relationships with technologies have the resources they need to dream, organise, build and thrive towards liberatory digital presents and futures.
This fund is built on participatory principles: it aims to redistribute power as well as resources. Funding decisions will be made by our Peer Circle — people who stand with and close to those directly negatively affected by technology, and who bring lived experience of systemic harms and liberatory practice. They have given input into the scope, process, and approach of this funding model. Folks in the movement will decide where movement money should go.
Our vision is for an ecosystem where these groups can do their work on their own terms, moving beyond resisting and reacting to harms, with the resources to imagine and build power for better presents and futures. We see this ecosystem as a place where justice movements are in solidarity with each other and organising, dreaming and building together to ensure that the purpose, design, fabrication, use and governance of technologies are rooted in justice and towards our collective liberation.
About the fund
This fund isn’t starting from scratch but the result of a collective effort that began in 2020, where over 30+ partners helped design ‘A vision for Digital Justice organising in Europe’ – a programme that identified the need for radical funding practices to help create the conditions for groups to resist structural technological harms and advance liberatory alternatives.
We give gratitude to our Peer Circle – a group of 10 people who hold knowledge and experience from working and organising across digital justice, disability justice, workers’ rights, racial justice, anti-caste justice, Roma rights, queer and transfeminist justice, amongst many other areas.
We are grateful for the support of Ford Foundation, Luminate, and Oak Foundation for resourcing this pilot round of the Digital Justice Fund.
We are also grateful to the work, support and solidarity of other intermediary funders radically reimagining resourcing in the field including Black Feminist Fund, Dalan Fund, Numun Fund, Guerilla Foundation, Collective Abundance, Green Screen Coalition, the Grassroots Movements Fund and many more.
funding criteria
The information below is retrospective, as applications to the 2026 Digital Justice Fund have now closed.
The Fund is aimed at not-for-profit initiatives: registered and unregistered groups, collectives, and non-governmental organisations, working on digital justice organising across the Council of Europe.
Groups can apply for grants between EUR 10,000 and EUR 50,000, to be used over a period of up to two years. We know funding politics and practices have led to groups (particularly grassroots and Black and People of Colour-led) under-requesting funding, so we encourage you to think expansively about your resourcing needs when applying.
All funding decisions will be made by our Peer Circle. They have helped shape the scope, processes and approach of our participatory funding model. The ten Peer Circle members hold knowledge and experience from working and organising across digital justice, disability justice, workers’ rights, racial justice, anti-caste justice, Roma rights, queer and transfeminist justice, amongst many other areas. We will prioritise groups led by historically and structurally excluded communities.
To be eligible to apply to the Fund and have a good chance of receiving a grant, you need to meet all the following criteria:
1. Your group must be based primarily in Europe, and the focus of your activities must also include Europe. Work in coalition with groups based internationally is welcome.
2. Your work must focus on digital justice organising.We define digital justice organising as work that builds collective power towards equitable access to resources for all and creates the conditions for the planet and all beings to thrive — including by enabling historically and structurally excluded communities to self-determine the purpose, design, production, deployment and governance of digital technologies.
3. Your annual organisational budget should not exceed an average of EUR 500,000(calculated over the past two or three years).
4. You have no more than 10 paid staff (including long term freelance contracts). Groups run entirely by volunteers or collectives without paid staff are also welcome to apply.
5. Your group is community-led. This means the people directly affected by the issues you work on are represented in your leadership or decision-making and implementation of your activities.
What we fund
Our aim is to support those with the politics, visions and strategies to challenge systemic harms, who are currently under-resourced or excluded from funding altogether, to build power and bring to life liberatory digital futures.
We are interested in funding:
– Community building and sustaining around digital justice issues: community organising, peer-to-peer support, relationship-building activities, etc.
– Knowledge and capacity building: popular and political education, investigative journalism, skills exchanges, issue mappings (e.g., technological harms, community needs and desires), advancing liberatory narratives around technology, artistic interventions, and other creative approaches, etc.
– Coalition and movement building: advocacy, strategic litigation, campaigning, etc.
– Tech-related mutual aid: tech repair circles, peer support on digital safety and security, shared technical infrastructures for movement work, software/hardware sharing initiatives, etc.
– Life-affirming technology work: prototyping, piloting, or expanding community-centred, transfeminist, anti-colonial technologies, etc.
We recognise that many of these activities and approaches overlap; these examples are to help spark ideas, not limit opportunities for funding.
Things that we don’t fund:
– Work primarily based or with activities focused outside of Europe
– Large organisations are already well-funded by trusts, foundations, or high-net-worth individuals
– Intermediary organisations whose role is to regrant funds
– Organisations set up by the government
– Universities
– Local branches of well-funded national or international organisations
– Groups whose beneficiaries are not represented in leadership, decision-making or implementation
– Political parties or groups attached to political parties
Application materials
These translations are meant to make the fund more accessible. Most were not professionally made (except Arabic and Bosnian).
Peers volunteered their time and energy to review them — and we’re deeply grateful. That said, some concepts may not translate perfectly.
When in doubt, please refer to the English version, especially the questions on the grants platform.
Click on the buttons below to download the application pack as a PDF in your native language.
Click on the buttons below to download the application pack as a document (.docx) in your native language.
