Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Our mission
At the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, we work to speed up and support the transition to a future free from poverty, in which people and planet can flourish.
Our ambition is that social and economic systems can give people greater control over the most important parts of their lives, with a more equal distribution of material and social resources for everyone to enjoy dignity, opportunity and hope and enable their fullest contribution to society. Achieving this will require systems built on solidarity, liberation, and people’s interdependence on each other and the natural environment.
We think the main obstacles to change are forms of capitalism which concentrate the ownership and control of scarce assets in fewer hands and the defenders of such inequality. Confronting these effectively is essential.
Where we work
We are active across all 4 nations of the UK. The different power structures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland require us to take a distinct approach to our work in each place. Harnessing our efforts across the UK, and anchored within our mission, we build insight and solutions for the struggles faced by people in these places, using local skills, connections and networks to drive progress towards our mission. We also play a particularly active role in our historic home city of York, and the surrounding region. This starts with our stewardship of the Homestead site, including the Homestead Park, and through our role as the parent organisation of the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT), a provider of affordable housing and care services in York and the wider region.
Our work areas
We have various teams that work together in service of our mission. These include: insight and policy, communications and public engagement, and emerging futures. We have a core team and our Executive is made up of our directors. We have a small equity, diversity and inclusion team who work cross-organisationally.
A note on EDI
JRF sees EDI as inextricably tied to our mission. We have two permanent internal roles that steer and deliver our work around EDI, with both an internal focus on our recruitment, policy and process as well as an external focus on the work that we do and the resource that we move. In 2021, we made a commitment to be an anti-racist organisation and we are on a journey to get there.
We actively encourage applications from people with lived experience of poverty, those who have grown up working-class, or have experienced other forms of marginality and exclusion. We seek to have plurality of thought at JRF and we know that this is brought about by having diversity of experience.
