Reflections on funding racial justice

This is the fourth edition of our racial justice audit which was developed by FREA . The audit has become an integral part of our ongoing commitment to becoming an anti-racist organisation. This commitment does not have an end date – rather, our hope is to always strive to continuously improve our practices, both as a grant maker and an employer.

It felt important to frame my reflections about this latest audit in the context of the racist and Islamophobic riots that occurred in August, but also in the context of the US elections and the worrying political shifts across Europe towards populism. 

The dominant language of ​‘othering’ – the very idea that particular people or communities are threatening to our society, our stability and peace – have sadly become engrained in our psyches, our institutions, and our structures and policies. 

As philanthropic organisations, we must face the hard truths and acknowledge that we must do more and must do better. The community organisations we support are compelled to change the circumstances of their communities despite limited resources. They are telling us loud and clear that, although philanthropy has made progress by moving more resources more quickly to racialised communities following the murder of George Floyd and the pandemic, they continue to experience a chronic lack of sustainable access to resources.

These riots are another reminder of the need to reaffirm our commitment to supporting work which recognises the impact of intersecting systems of oppressions like racism and Islamophobia. 

From that perspective, FREA’s racial justice audit has enabled us to consistently interrogate the extent to which our grant making processes and decision-making facilitate or hinder the access to our funding for organisations experiencing racial inequity. 

Recognising that white-dominant thinking, racism and paternalism are deeply embedded in philanthropic models and grant-making practices, the audit has been a useful starting point on our journey to challenge and unlearn some of the fundamental ideologies and structures maintaining and reinforcing inequality within our funding.

We continue to see an increase in the percentage of our funding going to organisations that intend to benefit communities experiencing racial inequity (44% compared to 38% in the previous year).

I believe this is a strong indication that our explicit commitment to addressing racism is speaking to a number of organisations whose leadership may not necessarily meet the criteria to be classified as ​‘by and for’, but they recognise the impact of racism in their communities and intentionally design activities to benefit those most impacted. 

This potentially shows how, as funders, we can send strong signals of intent and leverage for more inclusive approaches and more solidarity within the sectors we support.

After increasing from 2020/21 to 2022/23, you can also see a slight decrease in the percentage of funding to ​‘by and for’ communities in this latest audit – 16% of funding reaching ​‘by and for’ communities experiencing racial inequity, down from 20% last year.

It is important, however, to contextualise this year’s results as overall, approximately 37% of our portfolio of live grants support organisations working towards racial justice. 

It is fair to say that there are some complexities and nuances when it comes to the definition of ​‘by and for’ organisations. Whilst collecting data on the organisation mission and grant intention is relatively straightforward, assessing whether an organisation is led by communities with experience of racial inequity (following the DEI Data Standard definition of over 50% senior leadership and 75% of the Board) is more contentious. 

We have recently added questions on anti-oppression within our application processes, particularly focusing on anti-racism and organisational culture, to help us develop a more holistic and nuanced understanding of the characteristics of organisations who apply for funding and their approaches to change.

As part of the DEI Data Standard group of UK funders, we are also involved in commissioning Nottingham Business School (at Nottingham Trent University) and The Social Impact Consultancy to conduct an evaluation of the DEI Data Standard. This evaluation will analyse the data which funders have collected using the Standard and help us better understand how the Standard is being used, including how it influences our practices as well as the limitations. 

On average 10% of applications to our open grants were from ​‘led by’ organisations. However, our approval rate for ​‘led by’ organisations was significantly higher than for organisations not led by communities experiencing racial inequity (26% compared to 14%). 

On the one hand, the higher approval rate is evidence of our clear intent to prioritise organisations that recognise and prioritise work seeking to dismantle systems of oppression. On the other hand, even if we can be satisfied with our approach, it is difficult to explain the reasons for the lower level of applications in the first place.

In the aftermath of the riots, I met numerous organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity, including Muslim-led organisations who shared their scepticism about funders’ response to the riots. Many cited experiences of still being over-scrutinised and being viewed through a lens of suspicion. I was told that many community groups would simply internalise the view that we (funders) are not for them and would not bother applying. Although we can’t make a direct link between this data and this type of anecdotal evidence, we know it still resonates with many in the sector.

Over the past year, we have refreshed two of our funds (the Arts Fund and Migration Fund), reflecting more strongly our anti-oppression and anti-racism principles. We are therefore hoping these changes will create the conditions for more ​‘by and for’ organisations to come forward. We will be able to share more insight as part of next year’s audit. 

We continue to see positive shifts through our invitation only funds with over 20% of the funding reaching ​‘by and for’ communities experiencing racial inequity for the second consecutive year, up from 9% in 2021/22. There is always a danger that invitation-only funds can unfairly advantage those with the stronger networks and relationships with funders, and reinforce funding disparities. It is heartening to see that in our case, a higher percentage of our ​‘by-invitation’ funding is now going to ​‘by and for’ led organisations than our open funding. This is demonstrating our organisational commitment to redress historical underfunding and thoughtfulness about our networks and links in the sector. This change, we believe, is supported by the increased diversity and diverse lens of our teams, including our leadership team, over the past two years.

Having said that, we are cautious to not always rely on the same voices with an easier access to funders within the racial justice sector itself. We, as funders, can sometimes exceptionalise some ​‘by and for’ organisations and community groups, holding them to such standard because they (in our minds) represent a level of excellence which again centres ourselves, and our own sense of value and pride about our work. This can have a counter effect when something doesn’t go as planned. We can then quickly revert to traditional practices and become risk averse, thinking organisations of this type are too risky to invest in. 

We are also conscious that we need to be mindful of how our focus on racism does not ignore other systems of oppressions. We realise that in some cases, the organisations who did not meet the Data Standard criteria (50% senior leadership and 75% of the Board) may have been led by communities with intersecting identities or attributes who are experiencing other overlapping systems of oppression. We are therefore mindful to not interpret the data in a binary way and we actively use the Data Standard to build a picture of those organisations that are working through an intersectional lens.

Judging by the results of the past four years, our journey to becoming an anti-racist funder is far from being linear. It could have been tempting to present a sanitised version of our progress but this work is ongoing, and it requires nuance and an ability to sit with contradictions and complexity. 

Beyond specific processes or criteria, the transformative change starts with us as individuals. Transforming our grant-making to embed anti-oppressive principles is about personal transformation and shifting mental models at all levels of the organisation. 

This is a journey that we are all embracing and committed to. We will continue to be open and transparent, including by sharing how the FREA analysis helps us continuously refine our practice as well as informing our internal culture.