St Stephen's Green Trust

St Stephen’s Green Trust
mission, vision and values
St Stephen’s Green Trust is a charitable foundation which respects human dignity and is committed to identifying and responding to issues of social injustice in Ireland.

We do this by:

• Providing grants to organisations addressing issues which lead to inequalities.
• Supporting organisations to effect positive social change at a range of levels and using a variety of tools.
• Using our learning to influence positive social change.
• Being attentive to the current context.
• Being flexible in our funding to ensure we focus on the areas of greatest need.
• Taking calculated risks which allows new thinking to emerge, supports new ways of working, while achieving maximum impact from our limited resources.

We commit to:

• Sound analysis of the causes of inequalities, the effects of inequality on people and of the structural and institutional drivers of social injustice.
• Translating this analysis into an effective formulation of goals and objectives to inform our work. The strategies and tools we use as grantmakers will be guided by this analysis and commitment.
• Reflecting on the impact of our grants and the effectiveness and success of our work.

Our work is underpinned by the following core values:

• Respect & Solidarity: We respect the dignity of the communities with which we work. We will learn from and listen to what they have to say to us. We work in partnership with grantees and communities they serve. We believe better outcomes are achieved if we look to the communities for leadership and support their ownership of the work we help fund.
• Accountability & Transparency: We are accountable to a range of stakeholders for our stewardship including our funders and the people whose lives we are aiming to improve. We will hold ourselves accountable by setting high standards and by how we assess our impact. This includes learning from failure, both our own and others. We are committed to being open about how and why we do things, and will adhere to the highest possible standards of governance.
• Integrity: We are committed to doing what is right and will hold ourselves to the highest standards of honesty and ethical behaviour.
• Partnership: We recognise our mission can only be achieved in partnership with other individuals and organisations and we place a high value on collaboration. We will be creative in the use of our limited resources and take calculated risks to have maximum impact.