Open Collective
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SFMA Grantmaking Program is now live!
Published on March 15, 2023 by Sarah Cadorette

Hello, neighbors!
We would like to update everyone on our new Grantmaking program. We just successfully sent out our first Grant payment today (hooray!) and want to share the steps for applying for a Grant.

Moving forward, if you would like to apply for financial assistance, and you have access to a bank account*, please follow the instructions below:

  1. Go to the SFMA Grantmaking Project page.
  2. In the upper righthand corner of the page, click on the “ACTIONS” button. A dropdown menu should appear. Select “Request Grant”. 
  3. On the new page, select “Request Grant” at the top again.
  4. Fill out the information on this page with your legal name, the address connected to your bank account, and your bank account information. Please be sure to include your email address, so that we have a direct way to contact you if we have questions on your expense. (All of this information is shared only with the SFMA admins and the Open Collective Foundation admins.) At the bottom of the page, click “Next”.
    1. The bank account should be under your name. If you have access to a bank account under a different name, please leave a detailed comment on the next page explaining your relationship to the person on the bank account.
  5. On the new page, fill out the grant title, description and amount. You may also include documents, if you would like. Please note that your name and the grant description is public information. Then, click “Next”.
  6. On the next page, you can add comments for the SFMA admins and OCF admins to see (this is optional). Then, click “Submit request”.
  7. Once we have received your request, we will approve it in the order that we initially received a request from you. Please note that we are currently working through requests from people who initially reached out to us in 2020.
  8. When we have approved your request, you should receive an email from Open Collective Foundation with documents to sign. After you have signed the documents, they will be sent back to us to sign, and then they will be sent to OCF. At that point, OCF will disburse the funds to your bank account. They try to do this within 7 days after receiving all of the signed documents, but please note that it may take a little longer.

If you have any issues with this process, please contact us at [email protected] and we can support. Please make sure to double check that your name and bank account information are accurate, or it may take longer for you to receive funds!

*If you do not have access to a bank account, please contact us at [email protected] for information on how to apply for financial assistance.

Thank you all, and In Solidarity,
SF Bay Area Mutual Aid

Joan Osbert Tamulire

Posted on May 24, 2023

Hello. I'm hoping to submit my request.  I'm having really a had time. 

Kayla

Posted on January 28, 2024

Hello to everyone. I requested support for medication two weeks ago through your grant making project from my understanding it is supposed to take 7 days after request is made. I requested last year through your form as again I never heard back from anyone. I ask that you be honest to me if you are going to help or is this a waste of my time asking for help if help is not happening. 

Sarah Cadorette

Posted on January 29, 2024

Hello Kayla. I'm wondering where you saw that it was supposed to take 7 days after the request is made for it to be fulfilled. Maybe this is what you mean?:
"When we have approved your request, you should receive an email from Open Collective Foundation with documents to sign. After you have signed the documents, they will be sent back to us to sign, and then they will be sent to OCF. At that point, OCF will disburse the funds to your bank account. They try to do this within 7 days after receiving all of the signed documents, but please note that it may take a little longer."

We cannot state when a request will be approved after it's submitted, as it is different for everyone and it depends on when you submitted your initial request (usually through our own sfmutualaid.com site), and when you submitted your request through this site. It also depends on how quickly we are able to fulfill requests in general, which depends on our donations each month.

Can you tell us when you submitted a request last year? I don't see anything for you. Please email us at [email protected] with more info. Thanks!