Rose is a social justice activist, philanthropy advisor, and participation advocate. She has spent her career working in the non-profit sector, championing bottom-up, inclusive approaches to philanthropy and democracy. This includes different forms of participatory decision-making, where communities make the decisions about the policies or programmes that affect their lives.
Until 2024, Rose was the Head of Democratic Renewal Team for Open Society Foundations in Europe. Before becoming the Head of Democratic Renewal Team, she was a Program Officer at Open Society Foundations, responsible for work on 'open source democracy'. Rose has also held roles in the women’s rights organisation Womankind Worldwide, the intergovernmental agency The Commonwealth Foundation, and a social enterprise supporting micro-solar energy in Africa. Much of her work has focused on analysing funding policies and practices of bilateral donors and charitable foundations. In 2013, she joined Bond, the UK network for international development and humanitarian organisations. In this role, she worked with a wide range of stakeholders, from the UK government to small NGOs, leading efforts to support the effective flow of money from donors to the communities it is intended to serve.
Rose was part of the founding Facilitation Group of the Edge Fund, a UK-based funder that gives small grants to grassroots activists challenging the root causes of injustice and discrimination. Rose was involved with Edge Fund from 2013 to 2020, where her experiences strengthened her interest in inequality and injustice, as she witnessed the disproportionate impact of austerity on marginalised communities. This work also led Rose to co-found FundAction, a participatory fund and platform for systemic change activists.
Rose currently sits on the Board of Global Greengrants Fund, supporting grassroots environmental justice defenders. Rose has previously been on the Board of the EDGE Funders Alliance, the global network of progressive philanthropy, and was faculty for the Participatory Grantmakers Community of Practice.
Rose spent the first few years of her life in the Philippines, where many of her family still live. She holds a BA in English and Philosophy and an MA in Communication Studies from the University of Leeds. In 2018, as an AFSEE Residential Fellow, Rose completed an MSc in Inequalities and Social Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she wrote her dissertation on philanthropy and accountability.
I feel strongly that inequality won’t be resolved if solutions are proposed only by the privileged. Those who benefit from inequality can’t be relied upon to resolve it. This has become increasingly clear to me through my work with civil society and social movements. Too often those with wealth, rather than those closest to the issue, set the agenda. Participatory planning is essential to developing just and effective policy, and my ambition for the future is to advocate for participatory decision-making as a means to not only fairer but also more effective social outcomes.Rose Longhurst