It is impossible to do justice to a post-referendum analysis or to go beyond the ‘known knowns’ in a short piece, but for the purpose of this blog there are several key features we need to think about when developing a strategic approach to the coming several years.  The bloody nose given to the political establishment needs attention.  Firstly, although the salient political hook for the Leave Campaign was migration, this was in reality a proxy for being ‘left behind’ by globalisation.  People were sick and tired of being told they benefited from migration when they knew very well that they didn’t or didn’t much.  Most of us who lead charities do and that leads us straight into the heart of a paradox.  We want to heal the very thing we are part of creating.  Or put another way we want to ‘fix’ what’s wrong with other people.  Put like that it sounds pretty top down.

Secondly, it’s not as simple a binary as it first appears.  Lots of the prosperous south voted Leave, Liverpool voted Remain and let’s not even start to unpick the four countries question!  52%/48% is half and half more or less and the voting patterns show not whole areas of the countr(ies) voting one way but most areas voting relatively evenly.  So the divisions are not between places but within them.  Even within families.  Not to say there is no North/South issue, of course there is.  But as charities we are going to have to think much harder about how to be effective, for example, in place based work and what funders sometimes call ‘cold spots’.

Thirdly, and from a practical point of view very importantly for our sector, many of the EU funding streams such as the European Social Fund map right onto the strongest Leave areas.  What are the implications of that for the work of our social sector? I suggest bravery in refocusing should be on our agenda.

Immediately after the referendum we saw a spike in xenophobic and race hate crime.  The good news is that shortly before the referendum British Future polling showed that 67% of eligible voters thought that EU citizens already in the UK should be given permanent leave to remain in the event of a ‘leave’ vote.  Shortly after the Referendum in repeat polling we saw that figure go up slightly.  So we can deduce that the majority of Leavers do not endorse this kind of behaviour.  But we were perhaps complacent too soon.  Yes, the spike has abated but not returned to previous levels.

So the community sector should certainly have a role in ‘holding the line’ in a context where some people now feel they have a licence to abuse.  And we have to walk to the bit of a tightrope where we recognise people’s concerns, recognise they are not born of racism but also draw a line at what we might call ‘decency’.  There is a threshold beyond which it’s not okay to go.  Remainers and Leavers both.

Over the past eight years or so, we and several other foundations have been working together on public attitudes to migration, integration and British identity.  We set up British Future, a new organisation working solely on the issue of opening up dialogue and trying to build a narrative aimed at the ‘persuadable and anxious middle’.  We now have a considerable body of evidence which suggests that about a quarter of British society is actively hostile to migration and about a quarter actively supportive of it.  That half of the population is unlikely to change their views.  The other half are what are called the ‘anxious’ or ‘persuadable’ middle.  About half of those are economic sceptics – typically blue collar workers who are worried about job security, their children’s futures, wage stagnation and access to housing and public services.  The other half are cultural sceptics, worried that ‘this doesn’t feel like my country any more’ or ‘when I get on the bus I cannot hear any English spoken’.  Opening a dialogue with these two groups needs differentiated approaches.  And what we have found, among many other things, is that listening is more important than lecturing.  If you give people a diet of facts and evidence, it is not only ineffective, it is counter-productive.  We need much more of this more open dialogue because migration isn’t going away any time soon.

What makes people feel powerful, autonomous, in control?  This is a key question for our sector because the Leave Campaign’s greatest success was the slogan ‘Take back control’.  What are we going to offer people so that they feel they are getting that?  The only possible answer to that is ‘bottom up’ not ‘top down’ – communities organising and delivering their own visions.  There’s a lot of noise in our sector about enabling voice but it is a difficult thing to do well and is often more neglected than pursued.  And we would do well to hear in mind the disability movement slogan ‘Nothing about us without us’.

A lot of the best work welcoming newcomers has come from the faith communities and we would be wise to build on that.  In fact we would be wise to build on existing infrastructure in general because new initiatives take years to mature.  So we should be seeking and brokering alliances at the local level, while at the same time promoting good bridge building work on a national scale.  Last year we and others convened a meeting of funders to listen to key leaders in the migration sector about the refugee emergency.  What they told us was that the unprecedented outpouring of good will in this country would waste, evaporate and even sour if not harnessed.  So we set up a new, pooled fund for refugee and migrant welcoming work at the very local level.  It is managed for us by the UK Community Fund and so far is going very well.  Its focus is on the welcome given rather than the welcome received.

I have been convening and chairing a series of meetings with foundations in the UK and in Europe on the implications of the Brexit vote.  Some of the practical things to emerge are concerns about European Social Fund for example.  One of my reflections on that is – who is going to lobby for poorer people and communities when it comes to divvying up the UK cake?  The universities, the farmers and the scientific communities are all working their socks off on this already and have capacity to act.  I suggest this is one of our own sector’s responsibilities.

And finally, a word or two about putting our own houses in order, or as the young people would say, checking our privilege.  Much of the charity sector still reflects our patrician roots.  Certainly the charities of any size are suffering declining public trust such that we are less trusted now than the supermarkets.  I think that illustrates that we are part of the problem unless we consciously, deliberately and purposefully make it otherwise.  So for me part of what the Leave vote told me was to increase transparency and accountability and to beware of parachuting into other peoples’ realities without consulting them.

Of course there is good, solid community-building work in lots and lots of places.  But it is not unusual for different communities to be building their own social capital in parallel universes.  Where in the past we have thought of that in terms of race and ethnicity, particularly in some of the northern cities, should we now be turning our attention to broader bridge building and shared endeavours?  The Sustainable Development Goals do now offer a framework for this and I urge you all to take a good and considered look at them.  With the strapline ‘leave no one behind’ the major change from the Millenium Development Goals is an insistence that these goals are not only about the global south, they are about all people everywhere.  We have to start decreasing the gap in equalities in every place, not just between richer and poorer nations, if we are to heal the divisions which have been so sharply revealed.

In 2014, in the world of unsecured personal credit, there were few offering credit to those people on low incomes, and who have to take credit and pay it back each week or fortnight; people who can’t get credit from their banks or building society.

Most of those providers charged what most of us would consider to be high interest rates, high fees and inflated prices for the items, which would keep people from ever being able to escape their clutches.

There had to be a better way. So in August 2014, we got funding to get an independent company to run a series of consumer focus groups. They asked users of this type of credit when they used it, why they used it, what they used it for, and how they felt about it.

From what we heard, Fair for You was born. Two years later, we’ve capital and loan finance from four social funders, are fully authorised as a lender by the FCA, and have been trading since December 2015.

Our second Social Impact report has just being released and makes surprising reading.

For instance, we heard that an average loan of just £300 can directly improve customers’ ability to pay their rent (over half of people surveyed said this was the case, rising to two-thirds of lone parents). And that a loan of this size can directly improve the health and wellbeing of our customer’s children’s (one third felt this was the case – rising to 51% of lone parents).

Isn’t that amazing, given the comparatively small size of the loan?

However, a cursory view of Trustpilot will show you that among the 300 people who have so far posted reviews, pricing is only part of the reason that Fair for You has such an impact. It is the whole design of the solution that works for them.

Why? Because, without being too technical about it, we’ve combined structured credit with some of the key benefits of unstructured credit.

Our loans are for items for the home – we don’t do cash loans – and the customer chooses the item they want from our ‘digital high street’. The loan is then structured to purchase that item.

It’s also structured because the loan is clear to the customer, structured repayments on a schedule. They agree to pay an amount of their choosing, over a period they choose – weekly, monthly, fortnightly or four weekly, over any period from 12 weeks to 24 months.

So, if the customer wants to pay £10 a week over 37 weeks, then that’s the loan that we agree; and they are kept up-to-date on their repayments, via text, posted statements and monthly on-line updates.

The benefits of flexibility are that the customer can overpay at any time, and many customers choose to do so. For some it allows them to clear the credit earlier, and for others it allows themselves to miss a payment when facing a difficult week. All clearly get the fact that they don’t pay so much interest if they overpay.

However, the biggest difference is in the assessment of credit. We recognise that many households have low and fluctuating income, such as zero-hours contracts, so we set low repayments and allowing overpayment for when the money’s there. We’re also understanding of past credit problems, so we look instead at a customer’s management of credit over recent years.

It will be interesting to monitor the impact on the financial wellbeing of the households using Fair for You. Our Social Impact report estimates that within 3 years, the majority of customers having switched from using high cost credit regularly to using Fair for You, will no longer have a Poverty Premium in their household.

In the past few years considerable funding has been spent on financial education. For a fraction of this cost, the long term benefit to the households of having access to good financial products may far outweigh being continually taught how to avoid the most aggressive mutations of high cost credit providers.

Better product design, delivered in a more socially responsible manner, may well provide answers in a post-banking crisis world that has seen our society so polarised by their exposure to poverty.

Social sector leadership is an issue that’s close to my heart. I’ve worked with some exceptional individuals during my career: passionate and empathetic, thoughtful and strategic, collaborative, outward looking, with vision and foresight. They’ve not just been effective; they’ve been an inspiration to me. These qualities are found across the 163,000 organisations that make up the sector but not consistently so. Some of those heading up organisations lack the sort of insightful, collaborative and ‘generous’ leadership that feels so necessary when organisations should be collaborating, rather than competing, in the interests of their beneficiaries. Understandably, the response of some leaders is to retreat in the face of the huge external challenges whilst a tiny few – a small fraction of the total – act in a way that brings discredit on the sector as a whole and the values it stands for.

We have often neglected to invest in developing the next generation of leaders with such investment perhaps regarded as an indulgence. The fragmented nature of the sector – with many smaller charities and a limited number of larger ones – creates conditions in which we just hope and pray for good people rather than identifying and developing them. And this happens at a time when the social sector plays an increasingly important part in the fabric of society and yet faces some of its biggest strategic challenges. We have huge potential to be forces for good if only we can address this deficit.

This was the context for a ‘retreat’ held six months ago in Windsor.  The gathering was convened by Sally Bacon from the Clore Duffield Foundation (a pioneer in this field), Sara Llewellin from the Barrow Cadbury Trust and myself from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s UK Branch (another early supporter of Clore Social Leadership) with the support of Shaks Ghosh from Clore Social itself.  We were joined by colleagues from thirteen other funders, from the sector’s major umbrella bodies and from government. It was an opportunity for challenge and critical assessment. The big question was how we, as sector “stewards”, could ensure that it was well led and governed now and in the future.

A sense of urgency hung over our discussions and a number of observations emerged: there is no ‘market place’ where organisations can find affordable and accessible leadership education (and no sign-posting to what exists); for a variety of reasons, demand from the sector itself appears weak (whether driven by short-termism or lack of resource). We felt strongly the need to support charities in their work. This is not just to reclaim their place in the affections of the British public, challenged of late by the behaviours of the tiny few, but to fulfil their potential acting alongside the state and a private sector who share the mantle of meeting the demands and needs of the British public now and in the future. We committed to collaborate on a bold initiative to transform social sector leadership – what some call “pulling all the levers at once” and others “a collective shot in the arm” – to be delivered within a fixed timeframe but with an impact that lasts beyond the activities themselves (or funding).

The Funders’ Collaboration on Leadership, as it has come to be known, has brought together 50 individuals from funders, umbrella bodies, social sector organisations, and government with the aim of developing innovative and scalable solutions to the problems identified at the retreat. The focus is on four main themes, each of which now has a working party:

1. Restoring trust in the voluntary sector.
2. Sharing foresight information and preparing the sector for the future.
3. Improving the standard of governance by informing and giving skills to trustees.
4. Developing a new leadership style for our sector.

Each working group has been challenged to develop a defined, time-limited experiment that tackles each priority head on. If we can demonstrate evidence of the potential to be transformative, the plan is to prototype, pilot and take each to scale. We have a strong interest in ensuring this initiative adds up to more than the sum of its parts and we will be seeking to link the work of the different groups in ways that create a multiplier effect. We have a strong commitment to avoid duplicating other sector initiatives on governance, leadership and trust, complementing and supplementing them, where we can. We will disseminate the findings from the work and keep the collaborative flame burning with events and communications.

This doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because of the commitment of people like Shaks, those who joined us in Windsor and others besides. And, it doesn’t come free. We are pleased that the Office for Civil Society has set aside a budget of £1.7 million to invest in stronger leadership and governance up until 2020.  Our desire is that this contribution forms no more than a third of the total cost, with the remainder being raised from other sources including trusts and foundations, who will be encouraged to trial the approaches with the organisations in their grantee portfolios.

We intend that a real difference is felt by the organisations who make up our sector, those who work with us, who benefit and even those who have been our detractors of late. We estimate that there are 1.3 million leaders in our sector. To empower them further, we must extend a rich but
co-ordinated offer of support to remarkable people in a context in which their work is not only valued but sought out.

Join the conversation with #FundersCollab on Twitter.

Rent-to-own stores feature on many high streets, with windows that sparkle with giant TVs, PlayStations, and leather corner suites. The glamorous lifestyle beckons, at seemingly affordable rates.

But serious issues were thrown up when the all-party parliamentary group on debt and personal finance led an enquiry into the rent-to-own sector in February 2015.

It found that APRs of up to 94.7% and charges for compulsory cover, offering nothing more than statutory protection, often doubled the cost of essential household goods. Many customers – 50% according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – get into difficulties on their rent-to-own commitments. And 22% of these customers in arrears have had goods accepted back or repossessed.

Add to this the lack of transparency in terminology, and heavy-handed tactics both in up-selling and repossessions, and you get a sector that did not appear to be delivering in the customer’s interest. And as the goods are rental, it may be several years and sometimes thousands of pounds before they belong to you – a fact that is not made prominent.

Fair for You

In mid-2014 Angela Clements, the chief executive of a thriving credit union in central Birmingham, was tired of meeting desperate, struggling people on a daily basis, seeking loans and often finding themselves in the clutches of right-to-own and payday operators.

She began on the long and lonely path of setting up a new organisation looking to change the financial landscape for the lower-paid. It seemed criminal to her that those with the least were being forced to pay the most. Why should someone whose washing machine broke down be trapped into paying inflated prices, simply because they worked irregular hours, or cared for a disabled family member, and couldn’t access regular store credit?

In November 2015, after almost 18 months of funding rounds, setbacks and focus groups with exactly the kind of people Clements was looking to help, the business received its full FCA lending licence, and Fair for You was launched.

Established as a social enterprise, wholly owned by a charity, the small team began trading quietly at first while stress-testing the systems and concept.

Unlike the right-to-own sector, Fair for You’s customers are provided with credit to enable them to buy goods on the virtual high street. Crucially, this means that the customers own the items outright from day one.

Initially brand new white goods were available from the Whirlpool group (including Hotpoint and Indesit) at real-time high street prices – often lower than many on- and off-line retailers – and beds, cots and baby items are added in early April.

All items come with no compulsory insurances. Free delivery within three days is included (since the team recognised the convenience in specifying delivery slots), and removal of the old item is also available, free for kitchen appliances and at low cost if it’s a mattress – great if you don’t have access to a car.

Once items are chosen, a telephone discussion with lending managers establishes customers’ eligibility for loans, based more on affordability and propensity to repay. Those refused loans are signposted to organisations such as Turn2Us, to ensure applicants are receiving all financial help available.

In March 2016, the first independent social impact report was commissioned from the Centre for Responsible Credit. At stage one, the reporting is mainly around financial wellbeing – the money kept in a household to use on other things – and the self-respect given back to people by being treated with dignity.

At the next stage, this reporting is likely to include longer-term benefits to households in accessing better, more efficient food storage, clean clothes, and better sleep, and the knock-on effects this has on cohesive, healthier family lifestyles and ability to pay essential bills and rent.

The report justifies the need for ethical, not-for-profit operators in this space, looking to improve the outlook for Britain’s lower-paid families. It also contextualises the APR necessary to keep the business running, which some would see as high at 42.6%, as comparable to many credit union loans and artificially skewed due to the shorter, less restrictive loan term lengths.

But it recognises getting there has been a struggle. Fair for You will need assistance in reaching those who can benefit, to keep the loans flowing without the multi-million marketing budget of those it seeks to challenge.

The launch of the report in April will be followed by quarterly updates, which will give a longer-term picture of better lending to lower-paid households.

As Tom Levitt, former Labour MP for High Peak and chair of the charity, says, “We’re here to help – and we’re already making a difference.”

The original blog was paid for and provided by Lloyds Banking Group, one of the sponsor s of the Public Leaders Network.

Barrow Cadbury Trust supports Fair for You through a social investment.

Three years ago, Bite The Ballot (BTB) launched National Voter Registration Drive (NVRD), a campaign to get as many young people on the electoral register as possible in a single week of co-ordinated national action. During BTB’s NVRD 2015 campaign, we put 441,000 people on the electoral register, breaking the record previously held by (US campaign) Rock The Vote, and making history. This week marks the third annual NVRD, and it is bigger and more impactful than ever.

Founded in a classroom in 2010, BTB is a party-neutral movement on a mission to engage, inform, and inspire citizens age 16-25 to register to vote and stake a claim in society, sparking a journey of active citizenship among a generation and ultimately leading to a more just society and a stronger democracy.

By developing and delivering resources to younger citizens in classrooms, campuses, community centres, faith centres, youth clubs, public spaces and online platforms, BTB has engaged and registered millions of people in the UK. From our acclaimed interactive democracy workshop, ‘The Basics’, to our popular voter advice application, Verto, BTB has been breaking ground as it innovates and delivers resources created by young people for young people with the ambition of making sure that every citizen believes that their opinions matter and that expressing them counts.

BTB knows that engaging young people in democratic participation is vital to a healthy and diverse democracy. With 800,000 people reported to have fallen off the electoral register due to changes to the voter registration system in June 2014, our democracy is neither strong nor representative. This is why campaigns like NVRD are vital.

Between 1-7 February thousands of people around the UK will join BTB and engage young people and marginalised communities in voter registration activities, from workshops and registration drives to discussions with decision makers and film screenings.

For instance, in the Black Country, our Community Engagement Officer (CEO), Jessica, will be engaging people across Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton, running workshops in sixth form colleges and holding voter registration drives in public spaces like local libraries. She is one of seven inspiring young CEOs around the country who are running peer to peer engagement activities and empowering people in their areas to express their opinions and participate in democracy.

“As a Community Engagement Officer, I see it as my role to build and facilitate relationships between those living/working in community groups (be it schools, youth groups, support groups) and local decision makers” says Jessica.

“Whilst voter registration is at the heart of the work I do, what is important to me is trying to  create cohesion and continuity in my community partnerships. By delivering Bite The Ballot’s interactive democracy workshop ‘The Basics’, I hope to establish a platform where communities then keep me in mind for further engagement/awareness work, particularly in the coming months with local and PCC elections and the impending EU referendum.

“The National Voter Registration Drive has been a platform for me to cement the relationships I have built so far by running events throughout the week alongside community partners as well as targeting new actors and creating new links. During campaigns week, events ranging from voter registration rallies and student union democracy races to ‘The Basics’ and ‘Make a Manifesto’ are part of the Black Country’s push to generate discussions about politics and inspire citizens to register to vote.”

The National Voter Registration Drive is taking place nationwide between 1-7 February 2016. Find out more about Bite The Ballot on its website: bitetheballot.co.uk  and go to the NVRD website to find out more about NVRD.  

Contact Jessica by email [email protected]

This blog was originally posted on the British  Future website.

“I’m not sure I can pronounce any of it, but I’ll give it a go…” England fans were well aware of our nation’s difficulties with foreign languages when we handed out lyrics to La Marseillaise to them at Wembley this evening, under the watchful gaze of Bobby Moore’s statue. But we  still ran out within a few minutes, writes Steve Ballinger – everyone knew straight away why we were doing it.

They all knew they would sing two anthems this evening – and that this was no ordinary football friendly.

On Wembley Way, as we walked towards a Wembley Arch turned red, white and blue with ‘Liberte, Egalite, Franternite’ illuminated below, merchandise vans had sold out of ‘half n half scarves’ in the colours of England and France. An anomaly at most matches – who supports both teams? – they felt entirely apt at tonight’s game.

The atmosphere inside the ground was hard to describe. In many ways it didn’t feel that different – though the Englishman in front of me probably wouldn’t usually wrap himself in France’s Tricolore flag. We sang ‘God Save the Queen’ with gusto. And then the French anthem, the words displayed on Wembley’s giant screens after a campaign on social media and Change.org asking the FA to help us all sing La Marseillaise. The French fans nearby us sang it loud and proud; the English joined in gamely, as one might with an obscure hymn at a wedding. But then the bit we could all get right – “Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons! Marchons!” – rang out from every voice in Wembley stadium – tens of thousands of voices singing together and reminding us why it was so important that this game should go ahead.

The match itself, only ever a friendly to give Roy Hodgson’s team a taste of playing higher quality opposition,  was wholly overshadowed by the events that proceeded it, as one might expect. England’s opening goal, the first in England colours for Tottenham’s Dele Alli, was a beauty. It was typical of England to win a game where the score didn’t matter.

There was a standing ovation when France’s Lassana Diarra took to the field in the second half, just days after learning that his cousin had been killed in the Paris massacre; and a brief reprise of the French anthem in the 89th minute, as supporters from France waved their flags. A rousing applause followed the final whistle.

Then we all tramped off to queue for the tube home. News that another friendly, in Germany, had been called off due to another security alert, provided a grim reminder that the atrocities in Paris were not a one-off – and that tonight’s game,  important symbol though it was, would not be enough on is own to keep us all safe. But we were glad, all the same, that we had been at Wembley tonight,  part of this important moment of solidarity between two nations.

Why were Barrow Cadbury trustees keen to explore social finance opportunities? Some information about the origins and values of the Trust will shed some light on our interest.

The Trust was founded in 1920 by two Birmingham Quakers, Barrow and Geraldine Cadbury, energetic social reformers and generous philanthropists whose particular concerns were health, education and the criminal justice system.

Influenced by Joseph Rowntree, Barrow established the tax-paying Barrow Cadbury Fund (for those projects that fell outside the legal definition of ‘charitable’) alongside the charitable (and much larger) Barrow Cadbury Trust .

Our Quaker values inform the Trust’s ethical approach to its investments. Our approach is to use all our assets, such as our name, our expertise, our convening power, so not just the money.

We have a history of funding via loan finance. In the 1980s for example, we set up two revolving loan funds enabling unemployed people in the West Midlands to start their own businesses.

So the opportunity in 2009 to invest in the Peterborough SIB was timely. We had a century old interest in reducing reoffending. We also had a current track record of working with St Giles Trust so, in terms of partners as well as potential impact, it was a perfect entry point.

What do we look for when we invest?

Of paramount importance to us is the social impact of an investment. Our investments fall into three main categories:

The majority have been ‘programme related’, i.e interventions that we might under other circumstances consider grant aiding. As with our grantmaking, we actively seek to support pilot projects and ‘upstream’ or early interventions.

One of these is Bristol Together, a Community Interest Company that has developed a 5 year bond to raise working capital for buying and refurbishing properties, providing work and training opportunities for ex-offenders.

The impact of this investment is a 5% reoffending rate over 4 years (compared with the national average of 46%). What are the risks? There’s the possibility of overruns on costs and the Bristol housing market is much more unpredictable than London. There have also been cash flow challenges, but the project is currently on track to repay the bond.

We may seek general ways of supporting voluntary sector infrastructure: for example, we have made an equity investment as well as a loan for the purchase and redevelopment of a shoe-polish factory in Vauxhall, now known as the Foundry, a Social Justice and Human Rights Centre providing office and shared community space for 20 voluntary sector organisations.

And thirdly, the Trust is also interested in developing the social investment market; this motivated our investments in Golden Lane Housing for example.

(to be clear: I am referring to the 2013 bond issued through Triodos. We have also invested in the 2014 bond, but this was a mainstream investment in a corporate bond, made through our investment manager. We are delighted that this bond was successfully issued on the mainstream markets. )

We have an endowment of approaching £80 million, and have set aside 5% (ie £4 million) for social investment. Our pockets are not deep, but we are aware of the ‘kite mark effect’, the leverage that even a comparatively modest investment by Barrow Cadbury can afford an enterprise. Our early investment in the Peterborough SIB is a case in point.

Whether an investment relates closely to one of our programmes, or offers an opportunity to develop the market, above all we are keen to ensure significant social value, above and beyond simply savings to the public purse, valuable though they are.

Risk and return

In terms of risk and return, the potential social impact must justify the financial risk. We take a ‘whole portfolio’ view of financial return, so our appetite for risk varies with each investment. We are prepared to take risks, indeed, we believe we should, and have invested in a couple of ventures where we knew the risks were high. One has folded, and we will have to write off that loan, but the other is still making progress.

Whilst we seek considerable social impact, I would describe us as not financially ambitious. If we preserve the real value of the funds available to us over a 10 year period we will be satisfied. (More might be exciting! But it would cause us to question our risk appetite and whether we had the appropriate balance of social to financial return).

Do we become involved in the projects we support?

I have mentioned a couple of instances where I or a member of staff have joined the board of an organisation. This has merits:

• it certainly aids our learning,
• has been useful in developing informative reporting,
• and can strengthen governance.

It fits our principle of using all our assets for social good, but we do not insist on it: of the 15 investments made to date, we only have this kind of direct involvement in three, all at the invitation of the organisation.

The question of impact on our grant making is interesting.

We believe that grant finance is gold dust and must be protected for things that can’t (or should not) be financed any other way.

We remain keen on blended finance (we have made Ethex a grant as well as a loan, for example).

Our grantmaking is in no way reduced in scale or ambition. It has, I suggest, benefitted from a sharpening up of due diligence and from our increasing expertise. We are better placed to discuss with grant holders the appropriateness (or otherwise) of their pursuing other forms of finance.

To conclude, social investment offers a very welcome alternative source of finance, but it is not the only answer and it’s not for everyone: I do worry about some of the rhetoric: criticising so-called ‘grant dependency’ isn’t helpful, nor is characterising charity trustees as ‘risk averse’ when they decide that such new forms of finance are not for them.

But for the Barrow Cadbury Trust, the beauty of social investment can be summarised in four points. We believe that:

• Trusts and foundations can afford to take the financial risk off the shoulders of the delivery organisations.
• Social investment can move money ‘upstream’ to earlier interventions, which we all know can be more effective in the long run and give better value for money, but which are sometimes not affordable in the short term.
• We can help ‘unlock’ mainstream finance for social purposes (from pension funds, new money etc). For example we have now sold £70,000 of our original investment in Golden Lane Housing, bringing more social investors into the market.

And this touches on my fourth ‘beauty’: that the nature of investments is cyclical: as loans are repaid our capital is released so we can make further social investments.

You can watch Anna Southall’s full presentation, as well as other presentations at the event, on Youtube.

Here’s a quick question for you. For every £100 that a man working in Birmingham earns, how much do you think a woman earns? Ninety five pounds? Ninety pounds? Maybe as low as £85?

We’ll reveal the answer at the end, so while you’re mulling over that here’s another one. The unemployment rate for white people in Birmingham is about 9%. What’s the rate for black people? If you doubled 9%, try again. The answer is actually three times higher – 26%. The unemployment rate for Pakistani and Bangladeshi residents is similarly out of kilter, currently standing at 18%. But here’s the really interesting thing. Back in 2004 the white unemployment rate was 6% while the black rate was 18% – again three times higher. Over the course of a decade, despite all its strategies and plans, the city was unable to reduce this stark inequality.

Why is this? Well, it’s not just Birmingham that’s been asking these questions. A number of cities – from Plymouth to Sheffield to York – have held fairness commissions in recent years to understand why entrenched inequalities persist. As useful and, in some cases, penetrating as these commissions have been they have tended to ignore the nuts and bolts of how public agencies ‘do’ equality – how they go about tackling discrimination, eradicating social patterns of disadvantage, and fulfilling their legislative equalities duties. This is a serious gap. Understanding why these approaches have failed may go some way to explain why serious inequalities continue.

New research From Benign Neglect to Citizen Khan, providing a bird’s eye view of equalities practice down the decades shows that many ideas have been resistant to change. Whereas society has changed greatly over the last 30 years, our equalities tools have remained remarkably similar. For example, in 1984 Birmingham City Council set up a Race Equality Unit with the aim of addressing institutional racism and improving access to council services. By 1989 the Unit had 31 staff, including race relations advisers in housing, education, and social services. The Unit’s annual report for that year shows its activities included training, monitoring uptake of services, helping different departments devise race equality schemes, improving access to services (mainly by translating information), and organising outreach events. If you were to include something about community development (helping local community groups to support disadvantaged people) these activities would all be part of the Standard Six – the half a dozen key actions that have dominated equality strategies and policies over the decades. They’re the things that crop up time and time again, regardless of the organisation’s sector or the demographics of its service users. Ideally, equality approaches would be dynamic – constantly evolving as we better understand what works. Unfortunately, this generally hasn’t been the case.

We don’t want to suggest that no progress at all has been made, of course. For one thing, the number of excluded groups considered by equalities practice has increased. For example, public authorities in Birmingham didn’t fund any lesbian or gay groups during the 1970s or 80s – a situation which would be subject to serious scrutiny today. In addition, equalities practice is beginning to explore the impact of leadership and organisational vision when it comes to embedding best practice, and organisations are beginning to focus more on partnership working. However, there are still some things we need to get better at.

Firstly, as agencies work together more closely we need to be crystal clear about what ‘equality’ means. This may sound simple, but if you speak to people in different organisations you’d be surprised at how many answers you get. This is no longer an option. Different agencies have to be on the same page when it comes to delivering fairer outcomes for the most vulnerable. Secondly, and connected with this, we need a shared vision of what good quality of life looks like for Birmingham’s residents. This needs to be informed by what people think is important and by the common needs of people from different communities in the city. In other words, it will involve much more clarity about the ‘domains’ of equality that are important to a wide range of people in the city. Thirdly, we need to devise a series of entitlements necessary to guarantee these needs and measure the provision of these through a multi-agency, multi-sector programme of activities.

Finally – and perhaps most importantly – we need to take equality, cohesion, and integration seriously. In addition to the Standard Six, the clearest feature arising from a historical survey of equalities practice is that we’re constantly reacting to things. Whether it’s an influx of new migrants, riots, or legislative changes, equalities practice has always been devised in response to a particular crisis or problem. We have never stood back, thought about the type of society we want to create and then pursued this vision with vigour. It’s clear that equalities practice has usually been seen as a side show to the main business of delivering services. This can’t continue. We need to get on the front foot. Rather than react to problems we need to proactively shape the future.

Which brings us back to where we started: how much does a Birmingham woman earn compared to a man? The answer is £81 for every £100 he earns – a gender pay gap of 19%. This is bad enough itself, but it’s also worth noting that at our current rate of progress it’ll be 2038 before pay equality is achieved (and this is assuming there will always be progress: between 2012 and 2013 the gender pay gap actually increased). It’s becoming increasingly obvious that our traditional approaches to equality are delivering progress at too slow a rate. If we do what we’ve always done we’ll get what we’ve always got. And what we’ve always got has let down too many people.

It’s time for a change.

Frances Legg, Media Officer at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), blogs about its successful media training programme to get more progressive, diverse spokespeople into the mainstream media.

As the General Election approaches, many of us will be turning to TV and radio to make sense of the barrage of statistics and policy pledges thrown at us every day. But it is clear popular opinion is increasingly at odds with the news coverage on much of the mainstream media.

Why is it that we don’t hear more people talking on the television and radio about the dangers of climate change, the drawbacks of privatisation and the misery of inequality?  NEF has previously highlighted an acute lack of media training for people working in social, environmental and economic justice organisations.  This has created a void where voices calling for positive transformation of the economy should be heard.

Public debate desperately needs more spokespeople equipped to communicate with an audience that is tired of the status quo, receptive to new ideas and eager to engage in debate and discussion.  So in October last year NEF launched a new media training programme to help those pushing for a fairer and more sustainable economy to get their message heard in the mainstream media.

As well as mentoring campaigners from a range of sectors in how to frame and deliver their arguments effectively, we monitor the news and liaise with broadcasters to make sure media opportunities for the participants are taken.

Our spokespeople are housing campaigners, macroeconomists, green energy activists, champions of migrant rights and more.  And the chances are you’ve already seen them on your TV screens as we’ve already had a number of high-profile broadcast media appearances, including Sky News, BBC 5 Live, BBC News, Al Jazeera, LBC, Channel 4 News, BBC World Service and Russia Today.  The bookings speak for themselves, but participants also tell us what a difference our training has made.  Putting yourself out on a public platform can be scary – particularly if you’re a woman, from an ethnic minority or have a disability. The New Economy Spokesperson Network provides a community of peer support for its members. We particularly aim to promote voices that are not heard enough in the UK media: less white, middle class men and more of everyone else.

The New Economy Spokesperson Network accepts applications twice a year. The initial 3 day training course included 2 days of intensive media training with KNP Communications in association with the Franklin Forum, who have run a highly successful US version of this project.

Round two is going to be held at the end of May and we are busily making plans for that, as well as continuing to run our monthly follow-on training sessions in which our sokespeople have heard from top producers, practiced their interview technique in front of a current affairs presenter and started working on messaging guides.

It’s a really exciting project that has the potential to radically alter the framework for debate.

But we need YOU to get involved. Please spread the word amongst your networks and send us your ideas.  Do you know journalists who might be interested in booking members of the network? Or press teams who regularly have to turn down media requests? If so, please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you!

[email protected]