Thank you for supporting RESF!
The Rope Education Scholarship Fund (RESF)
RESF was established in 2019 to create a need-based grant fund that can help offset rope educational opportunities for individuals (including bottoms, tops, switches, and anyone else that is looking for any type of rope related education). Rope education is not limited to hard skills (e.g. "how to tie" or "how to bottom"), but may include other relevant or related education such as negotiation and consent, safety, nerves, and first aid, community leadership and organization, etc.
It is anticipated that the first grant awards will be made in early 2020, after which grants will be made on a rolling basis from time to time when the fund is large enough to grant awards. Grant awards will be available for use for a portion of event or tuition fees for BeachBind or other educational opportunities.
RESF will be funded by BeachBind and outside donations. BeachBind will donate an amount equal to 100% of all non-refundable deposits for BeachBind canceled registrations, as well as other amounts from time to time depending on its available funds. 100% of the money in the fund will be distributed and used for rope education grants.
The grant process details will be announced with each application process. Generally, the process will be "blind" meaning that applicants will be selected by a grant selection team who cannot see the names of the individual applicants, only their application information. The grant selection team will include individuals that are not BeachBind organizers or staff. The grant selection team will receive applications with names removed (a number being assigned in their place) during a grant selection period. The members of the grant selection team will be announced after the awards are made to ensure a fully blind process.
When a new grant process is opened, the total amount of available funds will be announced, along with the minimum and maximum number of grants that may be available. After the close of the application period, the grant selection team will then review the applications and decide who will receive grants and in what amounts. The grant selection team will have considerable discretion as to how to allocate grant funds, but with the largest factor being financial need (e.g. the applicant's ability to otherwise obtain rope education without the grant). The grant selection team may consider other factors such as time and commitment to their rope journey, service to the rope community or their local kink community, references (which will be submitted blindly), prior consent incidents and the way they were handled, and other factors they deem relevant or useful.
BeachBind and RESF endeavors to acknowledge and embrace diversity, convey respect to all people, be sensitive to differences, promote equal opportunities, and to provide the highest standards of ethics, integrity, safety, consent protocol, and inclusion. Therefore, if an applicant volunteers information regarding their status in a marginalized, less-privileged, or underserved group, or more specifically details showing that they have had less access to rope educational opportunities because of their membership in such a group, the grant selection committee will also consider those factors. The goal in doing is to ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that grants will be inclusive of all people of all genders regardless of their identifications, race/ethnicity, gender and sexual identities, expressions, or orientations, their bodies, their beliefs, values, fetishes, kinks, or lifestyle, or their abilities or disabilities (this list is not exhaustive).