EDGE Welcomes New Board Members!

EDGE Funders is pleased to welcome new member Matthias Fiedler, Managing Director of Bewegungsstiftung in Germany; Rose Longhurst, facilitating group member of the Edge Fund in the UK, and Donal Mac Fhearraigh, Program Officer with the Open Society Initiative for Europe.

Matthias Fiedler is Managing Director of Bewegungsstiftung in Germany, which supports the work of social movements, providing grants and advice to help them fulfill their potential. With the understanding that social and political change needs a lot of time, persistence and great commitment, the foundation supports campaigns on regional, national or international issues with clear strategies towards long-term impact. As one of the initiators of the EDGE network in Europe, Matthias believes an alliance organized around affinity rather than issue-specific themes is a necessary space for learning and collaboration among progressive funders. Rose Longhurst is a facilitating group member of the Edge Fund in the UK, which supports work run by and for communities facing discrimination and injustice in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England that find it difficult to get funding elsewhere. Specifically, the Edge Fund supports work that challenges abuses of power and aims to change society by bringing an end to the systems that cause injustice. While applicants may be working on short term reforms, the Edge Fund community is looking for applicants that ultimately aim to end or replace these systems with a just alternative, rather than trying to improve or reform them.Donal Mac Fhearraigh is Program Officer with is Program Officer with the Open Society Initiative for Europe, in charge of two portfolios, Effective Activism and State and Regulatory Capture. Based in Barcelona, OSIFE aims to narrow the gulf between the promise of Europe as the prototype for an open society and reality. In addition to engaging and supporting bottom-up initiatives that can reconnect critical constituencies to the European project, the Initiative supports high-level debates about the institutional and political developments that threaten the viability of the EU as a democratic polity.