Funder collaboration is an increasingly normal part of the way foundations work. Issues as diverse as migration, mental health stigma, early intervention, women and multiple disadvantage, and child sexual exploitation are being approached by funder collaboratives of varying shapes and sizes. It still appears to be a new idea, however, to explicitly set out with the aim of co-creating priorities and actions with those working in NGOs in the field – in other words a genuinely mixed alliance. This is the story of one such alliance, one between race equality organisations and funders.

It started with a call from the Big Lottery Fund, which led to a loose alliance of funders coming together over a shared concern about ethnic inequality and social justice in late 2015. This was a diverse group working on a wide range of issues – health and wellbeing, poverty, criminal justice, arts and heritage, education, extreme disadvantage. The common thread is a concern about the stark ethnic inequalities that are apparent in systems and communities. In the criminal justice system, just to give one example, Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities are over-represented in prison: approximately 25% of prisoners are from a BAME background, compared with being only 13% of the wider population. The situation is worse for under-18s: over 40% of those in secure youth institutions are from BAME backgrounds, up significantly from 25% a decade ago. Despite decades of activism and legislation it is clear that we are not born equal: race and ethnicity still have a substantial impact on life chances and experiences.

Collective dialogue

Rather than funders deciding on a course of action, in early 2016 the funder alliance began a collective dialogue with key race equality organisations, co-creating a number of priority areas. This was and remains a complicated thing – power dynamics are at play, there are questions of who is and is not at the table. Can expectations raised by the coming together of so many funders be met? Are funders really prepared to be open about their processes and to change their practice?

We haven’t resolved these issues but we are still in dialogue, being as open as we can be with each other, building relationships and reminding ourselves of our shared purpose when things get difficult. Our work has started to crystallise around two issues, and jointly we are exploring the development of a strategic communications project, and a co-ordinated response to the government’s Race Disparity Unit (which will synthesise data on racial inequalities in public services).

Hate given licence

The work of our fledgling collaborative was given an added urgency by the Referendum last June and the spike in hate crime that followed it. It is unlikely this represented a sudden upsurge in racist sentiment. Instead it seems that the rhetoric surrounding the referendum, and the post-referendum environment, has made people with racist or xenophobic views feel more comfortable expressing these openly. The election of Donald Trump and the rise of the far right across Europe adds to the sense of a continuing trend and to the importance of renewed engagement with this issue and solidarity with those directly affected.

In our collaborative, the race equality organisations reported on a growing unease and sense of threat felt by BAME organisations and communities. Funders were keen to identify some ‘quick wins’. Together we came up with ideas, which we offer as potentially helpful to others in the funder community who want to show solidarity with those affected:

• Talk about inequalities, race and racism. Mention it on your website. Name it as an issue. Keep it on the agenda.
• Talk to race equality organisations to find out what has happened post-referendum. Reporting mechanisms for hate crime are fragmented so it is not always easy to get a complete picture – supporting existing or new reporting mechanisms, or funding race equality bodies, is helpful.
• Use your convening power to bring people together to discuss the issues highlighted by the referendum and subsequent events and to consider how to respond together.
• Support work that brings people from different communities together in meaningful shared activity or in dialogue. Under the right conditions interpersonal contact is one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice between majority and minority group members.
• Review your own policies and procedures for unintentional bias against BAME organisations. Increasing your permeability might help with this – consider offering a secondment to someone from a local BAME organisation or inviting a review of your procedures.
• Few trusts and foundations are leading by example: our senior management teams and boards lack diversity. Are there steps that you can take to improve this, or to bring diverse voices into your organisation?

Reviewing our practice

As well as working collaboratively with the race equality sector, the funder group continues with its own separate cycle of meetings, at which we discuss and reflect on our own processes and learn from each other. Members have responded in a range of ways. For example, some have undertaken equalities audits or reviewed our grant-making practices. Several of us have made ourselves more open to BAME organisations through secondments. We are learning to be comfortable saying we haven’t got it right and we want to improve.

All trusts and foundations that want to increase their contribution to race equality are very welcome to join the funder alliance, the funder/race equality sector collaborative or both. We don’t have all the answers but we think working in the spirit of genuine partnership, with all the joys and challenges it brings, is the right thing to do.

For more information contact Cathy Stancer or Debbie Pippard

“An ‘issue’ is a public matter,” he elaborated “when values cherished by the public are felt to be threatened […] it is the very nature of an issue, unlike even widespread trouble, that it cannot very well be defined in terms of the everyday environments of ordinary men. An issue, in fact, often involves a crisis in institutional arrangements.”

There are an estimated 60,000 young people living in the UK who have irregular immigration status. This tag is no mere administrative burden. It compromises their security and safety, their health and wellbeing and our ability to support those who are vulnerable and exploited by others. If you are young, and without the correct papers, then you are likely to be extremely quiet about it: you will try to manage alone the problems this generates. You will be unable to get trusted advice and legal support. You will be unwilling to speak up about this for fear of being deported. You will be unsure about accessing the health and social support that most of us take for granted. You will not know who and what to trust. You will see both light and darkness in remaining invisible.

Last week, at a meeting of European charitable trusts at Paul Hamlyn Foundation, two organisations spoke to the assembled grant makers about what they were doing to make sure the personal troubles of so many become social issues that we address. Just for Kids Law talked about their work helping young migrant – many of whom have grown up as children in the UK – to access higher education. Swarm has developed a web portal through which young people and their families can work out how they can get help with their immigration status problems. Both charities are part of a wider collaboration, started by Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Unbound Philanthropy – two funders working in partnership. Supported Options uses grant making, research, convening, digital technology, story-telling and direct service development to shine a light on the lives of young people trapped by their status, and also to point to policy and practice solutions.

We are rightly transfixed by the continuing refugee crisis and in the UK there has been a huge mobilisation of interest and offers of help from the general public. But we must not lose sight of those – such as young people without papers – whose stories are not being told, and who are not in the limelight. They are as deserving of our attention and our support as any young person in trouble.

In the United States, a growing movement for change – led by United We Dream – has turned many undocumented young people into social activists and campaigners, and in this movement individuals find support and friendship. In the United Kingdom, a similar movement has been much slower in coming – but coming it is. Let Us Learn is a youth-led campaign that has already brought about a change in the law, with a recent Supreme Court decision securing access to higher education funding for many. We must nurture this movement and protect the brave young people who work selflessly for the rights and futures of others. ‘Coming out’ as undocumented and speaking up for one’s rights and the rights of others is to put oneself in peril, but it is probably the only way that young people’s troubles become our social issue. We should reward their courage and dignity by helping them to study and ensuring that they can access legal advice and representation in order to make decisions about their futures from a position of stability and security.

This meeting of the European Foundation Centre’s (EFC) Diversity, Migration, and Integration Thematic Network brought together EFC members for two days in October 2015, to network, learn from one another and identify potential areas of common interest. The Network is chaired by the Barrow Cadbury Trust.

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.

Jessica Kennedy of the Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum celebrates  the legacy of the Women on the Move Awards

On Thursday 6th March, 260 people gathered at the Southbank Centre to celebrate the achievements of inspirational women from refugee and migrant communities. The Women on the Move Awards, part of the WOW Festival and supported by Barrow Cadbury Trust are held to recognise the outstanding contributions that refugee women make to empowering and integrating their communities.  My organisation – The Forum – co-hosts the Awards alongside Migrants Rights Network and UNHCR.

The Awards are more than just a one night event, and aim to make an ongoing and lasting difference to the winners and their communities. The women gain recognition for, and raise the profile of, their work.  In addition, a fellowship provides access to high quality leadership development and help to build a network of exceptional women and the organisations they work with.

A month after the awards, as the dust has settled and the plaudits die down, what has changed?

Connections

Lilian Seenoi, who founded the only migrant forum in Derry-Londonderry from her kitchen table, won the Women of the Year Award for her work to ensure migrants and refugees can access support. The North-West Migrants Forum brings together diverse migrant groups and local communities which have suffered years of tension. The Awards have catapulted Lilian onto an international stage – she has just come back from Brussels, where she contributed to a public debate at the European Union on practical steps to challenge the poor treatment of migrants in Greece. She is shortly to fly to Turin, Italy, to take part in a European-wide project to tackle hate speech, before another visit to Brussels. All that before running a festival in June to bring together communities building on Derry-Londonderry’s place as UK City of Culture in 2013.

International attention also followed Tatiana Garavito, winner of the Young Woman of the Year Award for her tireless and determined work with the Latin American community in London. El Espectador, a mainstream newspaper in Colombia, published an article about Tatiana.  A short film commissioned by the Women on the Move Awards about Tatiana’s work will be shown at a documentary film festival in Colombia.  After the Awards Tatiana said they were “an amazing opportunity for us migrant women to show the world what we can achieve given a fair chance”.

Those who attended the Awards also found powerful connections. My personal highlight of the night was seeing, in the crush of the after-party, members of a collective of domestic workers connecting with a woman who works with Lilian and the North-West Migrants Forum and is trying to tackle exploitative labour practices in Northern Ireland. This fledgling relationship is continuing and already leading to mutual support, learning and, ultimately, stronger and more effective organisations.

Interest

Although the Awards receive little coverage from major news organisations, the winners and their organisations gain interest from a variety of other sources. Diana Nammi, who founded the Iranian-Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) as a reaction to ‘honour’ killing and violence, was given special recognition for her tireless work. On the night, IKWRO’s twitter followers notably increased.  All our winners have been inundated with requests for interviews and articles.

Films that Women on the Move made about the Award winners have reached 5,561 viewers – spreading these courageous stories even further. As organisers, we are so glad to see how the Awards create a platform for extraordinary women to shout about their own and their organisations’ great work.  Tatiana was able to highlight the invisibility of the Latin American community in London: “with this [attention], the whole community get the recognition that we are campaigning for”.

Confidence

Perhaps most important, the women tell me, is an improvement in their confidence. Standing on stage as an Award winner, being celebrated for your work and able to share your story from a place of strength, can have a huge personal impact. From what we already know about these courageous and determined women, the only way from here is up.

We also know this is just the start of working relationships that benefit us all. As Diana, one of the award-winners, said after the ceremony, “it has been a huge pleasure – and I hope this will be a start for partnership work for the future”. The Forum hopes the Awards continue to impact throughout the year and look forward to seeing all our supporters – and more extraordinary women – in 2015! There may be only one day to celebrate international women, but Women on the Move are changing lives everyday.

It’s a commonplace to see the word ‘Roma’ juxtaposed to ‘homeless’, ‘beggar’, ‘benefits’, ‘rubbish’ and ‘migrant’ – when not tied up with trafficking and stealing children.  Unless it’s an absence as in the current UK government’s National Roma Inclusion Strategy, which pointedly hardly refers to Roma at all.  So we are forced to accept Roma ‘deficiency’ and their need for assistance or support (or solidarity even…)

What a joy then to attend an event in Manchester last month[1] where a panel considered the opposite question – how do Roma pose an opportunity for UK cities?   We heard tough head teachers say that the presence of Roma children in school had “brought us an understanding of the work ethic, and how children can be resourceful and adapt, and – a little but important thing – how young children understood how to eat together and with adults….  In fact, Roma children have done us all a service by teaching us to be better at our jobs”.  A point a leading social entrepreneur made: “Personal social services in this country are organised for Mr & Mrs Average – but rarely for anyone slightly different, let alone chaotic.  Roma are different, and if we can co-develop services with Roma then everyone would benefit”.   A young Roma woman said that it was only coming to this country that (a) she knew what discrimination was, as she’d accepted the inevitability of exclusion in her country of birth, and that (b) she became aware of her own capabilities and contribution.  A university teacher spoke about the importance of family relationships, self-reliance, innovation and adaptability (especially to earn a living) – all those virtues that are supposedly upheld by leading politicians and newspaper editors.   A leading politician talked about how young Roma people can enable neighbourhoods to become stronger and more confident as barriers and misunderstandings get broken down initially between young people.  And finally, a writer reminded us that Britain has a long, but variable history of welcoming people trying to both make a better life and escaping oppressive treatment; “do we want to move back from being one of the most tolerant and multi-ethnic countries in the world – and if so, at what cost to many of us?”

There are some critics of migration and EU migrant communities, who focus on the incidents of people who appear willing to work for very low pay in appalling conditions, and families who appear to tolerate substandard and overcrowded housing.    But isn’t this a classic illustration of ‘blame the victim’?  Where are the regulations and enforcement actions taken by, for example, HMRC against rogue employers, or by housing authorities against unscrupulous landlords?  As the social entrepreneur said at the Manchester meeting, if we can develop good services with and for Roma, everyone benefits.

The Government don’t seem to have explored the opportunities that Roma bring.  Twenty years ago, there was a strong offer of friendship and potential welcome to the East/Central European states and peoples.  But is it only their doctors and IT specialists we want; and at a pinch, the hairdresser and plumber?  The Roma communities emerge from decades of forced assimilation or forced exclusion; the UK offers hope.  And the Roma bring with them behaviours and aptitudes that are sorely needed.  What a treat to attend a meeting where the words ‘Roma’ and ‘success’ and ‘opportunity’ were heard.  The Roma Support Group applauds this type of initiative, and welcomes a growing movement within the UK of determined Roma and non-Roma activists who want to concentrate on the potential, rather than allow the mindless stereotypes to prevail in what passes for our national narrative.

www.romasupportgroup.org.uk

Who’s doing the asking? finds that the fundraising workforce is less diverse than that of the voluntary sector as a whole. Survey data from nearly 1,500 Institute of Fundraising members found that 87 per cent of fundraisers are white, 50% were under the age of 40 and five per cent describe themselves as having a disability.

The survey found more women than men working as fundraisers, but women were less likely to be in managerial roles; 39% of male respondents were working in senior management or similar roles compared to 31% of women. Women were also more likely than men to be in part-time roles.

Seven per cent of respondent to the survey identified themselves as coming from a Black, Asian, or from mixed ethnicity. This percentage is lower than that of the sector as a whole with ten per cent identifying themselves as BAME on the Voluntary Sector Workforce Almanac.

The report identifies a number of recommendations for where the diversity of the sector could be improved; highlighting problems such as the bias toward senior men in management roles. These recommendations include establishing a diversity in fundraising group, and reducing barriers to job entry and career progression.

Read the full report here.