Income from our solar installations funds the Cathy McCormack Community Activism Fund — supporting grassroots community projects across Glasgow.
Cathy McCormack
Cathy McCormack (1952–2022) was a community activist from Easterhouse who campaigned tirelessly for social and climate justice. Her work highlighted the links between fuel poverty, poor housing, and health inequalities in Glasgow's communities.
We named our fund in her honour to continue the fight for community-led change.
To find out more about Cathy's inspiring life, check out her 2009 book The Wee Yellow Butterfly, which we helped to transform into a freely-available audiobook in 2025.
About the Fund
As a Community Benefit Society, every penny of profit we generate goes back into the community, through our Cathy McCormack Community Activism Fund — named in honour of the Easterhouse activist who spent decades fighting for climate and social justice in Glasgow's communities.
How It Works
Generate
Our solar installations generate clean electricity which is sold to the schools at a fair price, generating income for the co-operative.
Fund
Surplus income is allocated to the Cathy McCormack Community Activism Fund, managed by the Board with input from members.
Support
The fund supports grassroots projects across Glasgow aimed at addressing the root causes for climate and social injustice, not just the symptoms.
Fund Development
Launched in March 2024, for its first three years the fund has been used to support community organisations close to our solar installations in Pollokshields and Easterhouse — including: The Pollokshields Trust, St. Paul's Youth Forum, Connect Community Trust, East End Flat Pack Meals and Fuse Youth Café.
From 2027 onwards, we aim to open up the fund across Glasgow to give others the opportunity to apply. A key task before then is to design the application and selection process so that it is inclusive and equitable and in line with Cathy's ethos, as well as our own objectives and principles.
To do this, we are excited to be piloting a Participatory Grant Making (PGM) initiative over the course of 2026 with the support of Foundation Scotland. This brings together representatives of community organisations across the city to design — and try out — the processes for the Cathy McCormack Community Activism Fund going forward. We hope that by co-designing the fund with the communities we'd like to see benefit, it can become a positive force for radical change across the city.
In the spirit of our predecessor organisation the Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund, we want to support activities which could not easily find funding elsewhere, and to have a relatively light-touch with our grant issuing and reporting so that it does not become the onerous task required by many other funders.