The last five years have been ones of immense change within the impact economy, as it seeks to address things like a fracturing of our political norms, shifts in the way we come together and relate to each other as individuals and a society, loss and degradation of our community assets, continued declines in our overall perceptions of wellbeing, the impacts of the triple planetary crisis (in terms of climate change, nature loss and pollution), anaemic levels of economic growth in the UK, and the implications of a continued cost of living crisis. These are also times of rising populism and polarisation, which means that, for some of us, the organisations we fund are being attacked in the media and having false information shared about them. As charitable funders our legitimacy to fund these organisations is also being questioned, with accusations of funders ignoring their charitable objectives and aims and being too political or too ‘woke’ or too liberal.  

In times of attack, our instincts might lead us to retreat or hide. To undertake funding work under the radar when required, so that funded partners are freer to do their charitable work, unencumbered by undue press attention and challenge. Lowering our profile or presence as funders might make us feel safer too. We might even think of this decision as being helpful, as we try to take the heat out of a situation. It could be argued that this approach, in some ways, runs counter to the work of the FPR which is zealous (and rightly so!) in its pursuit of increasing transparency, accountability and diversity within trusts and foundations. Charitable funding has long had a reputation of opacity, and initiatives like FPR challenge that and raise standards.

The dilemma of transparency and safety

So, what is a funder to do? Disclose information publicly, whilst accepting the potential risk for harm and attack of its work and its people? Wouldn’t it be safer to take down any data we might share about our staff and Trustees – be that their name, their pictures, their biographies, or the diversity monitoring data we might have collected? Perhaps, in the interest of safety, we shouldn’t share anything about the kinds of work we want to fund or who we have made grants to?  

There are no easy answers. But there are some critical points that we must engage with when making these decisions.  

The attacks faced by charities from the media, the far right and populists are heinous – organisations shouldn’t have to be removing their staff and trustee pages and their contact details, including work addresses, from their websites, or signage from their buildings, or installing practical safety measures for their staff at their place of work and their homes. Ensuring the safety of individuals is paramount and organisations should do whatever it takes to safeguard their organisations and the people they work with and serve.  

And at the same time, more can be done to build up defences against those forces that propagate unbalanced scrutiny and vexatious comments about charities in the media in the first place. Building cross-society support and trust in charities and reinforcing the critical role of civil society in our democracy is a good place to start.  

Public trust in charities is hard fought for. In 2025, 57% of people had high trust in charities, but nearly 10% have very low trust in charities. Yet, we have also seen examples of positive, coordinated, public responses to reporting and criticisms in the media against organisations like the National Trust and RNLI on issues of ‘wokeness’ and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The more we can continue to build transparency, accountability and diversity in the sector, the more chance we will have of building broader coalitions of support across different parts of our society. This will serve to protect us more in times when we are under clear attack, as we can look to the public to come to civil society’s aid too. 

We know that there are very live debates about whether DEI data should be published externally by trusts and foundations. This is something that we have both had to consider in our own organisations, especially as we are smaller organisations and this might make information we share easier to trace back to a single individual (even when we try to anonymise the data). In some ways, the answer might be obvious given the risk of attack – we should not share the data – and in some cases of imminent harm to an individual or organisation that might be right. But for us, that doesn’t feel like the right answer overall. For a few different reasons.  

The first is purely practical. We could remove information from our website or annual report and accounts and that might give the impression of making things safe. The internet is vast and searchable, though, and therefore references to what you have shared in a personal or professional capacity might exist elsewhere and these can be used to pull together a picture of your diversity characteristics. Furthermore, with all diversity related disclosures, there is the option of using the ‘prefer not to say’ label and regaining some safety through this. 

The second is about purpose. The introduction of DEI monitoring through various legislation and industry standards in the UK has helped to draw attention to sectors that lag behind on inequality and discrimination. It has helped illuminate progress over time and to hold decision-makers to account for that. In recent years, there has been a widening retrenchment on DEI reporting. Goldman Sachs for instance, recently dropped a rule that it would refuse to take companies public if they did not have diverse enough boards, saying the policy had “served its purpose”. Those forces that seek to create a hostile environment for DEI reporting are often doing so because reporting is working. Despite the challenge and discomfort of speaking publicly about DEI in the current climate, supporting the long-term purpose of DEI monitoring and greater transparency on issues of equity and inclusion in the funding field feels like a prize worth fighting for.  

The third is about solidarity. We often talk about fences in our sector – on one side of the fence live the funders, and on the other side are those that we fund or seek to fund. This analogy has arisen for many reasons, including the power wielded by funders due to their wealth, their ability to exist in the long term, and their influence across the sector and beyond. It has also arisen because funders’ lack of transparency, accountability and diversity has made them feel unknowable to grant-seeking and grant-holding organisations. Initiatives like the FPR help to change this and show that we are working hard as a sector to address this meaningfully.

Breaking down fences

However in this age of significant disruption and interconnected crises that are impacting us locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, we need to commit fully to tearing down those fences. And fast.  

The funding sector has a particular responsibility to remove those fences. We can use our independence and proximity to wealth and power to model transparency and the need for change on issues of DEI. Trusts and foundations often have the means and resources to defend ourselves from attack in a way that those we fund might struggle with. We can invest in things like crisis communications support and legal advice readily. We also have a bit of capacity that means we can do some of this preparation before we are under attack. If an organisation we fund is being criticised, and we are named as one of the funders and therefore come under attack by extension, then we should see this as an opportunity that takes some of the heat away from that organisation.  

Increasingly, trusts and foundations like ours are trying to be part of the sectors and movements we support. Whilst we are not engaged in frontline and direct delivery work, we are trying harder to ensure that we understand the causes we support and removing barriers that exist between organisations and us, in order to lend our support (which tends to primarily be in the form of our grantmaking) more effectively. If we are doing this properly, then we should know that the notion of safety is a false one. Defensive mechanisms within philanthropy that shield the sector itself from some of the direct effects of inequality are, at times, only paper thin. Those working within philanthropy can both perpetuate and experience structural discrimination. Staff and trustees within our sector are on the receiving end of racism, sexism, disablism and so on – as they are in wider civil society. On the issue of disclosure of DEI information for instance, some don’t get the benefit of choice around non-disclosure. By dint of our names, our skin colour, how we physically present and more, you might be able to discern any number of protected characteristics.  

Ultimately, we need to protect our staff, trustees, funded partners and those we serve from the most egregious forms of trolling and discrimination when we can – but also be bold and open in challenging structural inequalities that matter to us all. As funders, we have opportunities to be transparent about where we are changing things on DEI, but also where we have made mistakes and where there is more to learn. The forces that seek to divide those who speak publicly about DEI through culture wars, misinformation and polarising media strategies are winning if we think that solidarity, collective action and embracing shared experience across civil society and other sectors isn’t the answer. 

The importance of transparency, accountability and diversity

Initiatives like the FPR have offered us a moment to reflect and demonstrate accountability to those we serve and we are grateful for that. In a field like philanthropy, there is a high degree of independence. Accountability often needs to be built directly by those working in the field because it is imposed by so few outside of it. Ultimately, it is our contention that the more transparent, accountable and diverse we are, the better it is for our sector, those we fund and wider society. It might be tempting to retreat and hide, but the information is already out there. And if we really do want to be part of the sectors we work in, without any fences between those we fund and us, then we need to use all of our resources (not just our funding) as fully as we can in order to highlight and dismantle structural inequalities that ultimately harm us all.