SPEAKER_02 0:12

You're listening to the Philanthropisms podcast with Roger Davis. Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rod Davis, and this week we've got an interview, a great conversation, with Jake Ferguson and Vanessa Thomas, both of whom are committee members of the Baabab Foundation, which is a new funder that's emerged in the last few years in the UK. Really fascinating and exciting organization, as you'll hear from the interview. A different type of foundation in many ways, one that was set up in response to the concerns around racial injustice that have emerged over the last few years, particularly in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the sort of uprising of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. But with a view to doing something meaningful over the long term, a group of people came together, as you'll hear, to try and establish a new organization, a funder that could build its own endowment, but one that's led in a really interesting way by people from black and minoritized communities who might traditionally have been seen as the recipients of philanthropic funding and often were kind of left out of decisions when it came to distributing that funding. And Baebab is part of an attempt to try and address that and to change the funding landscape more fundamentally, as you'll hear. So we had a great conversation, Jake and Vanessa and I, talking about uh what it was that led to the creation of Baebab, how it's developed so far, um, what they've learned, some of the challenges that that they've uh come across. Um we also talked about the fact that Baebab is not just an interesting in terms of what it funds, but in terms of how it's organized and some of the decisions that led to it being set up with a non-traditional charitable structure, um particularly because they didn't want to have their ability to speak out on issues limited, and also the fact that it very deliberately has taken a decision to have more of a horizontal rather than a traditional hierarchical structure and kind of why that decision was taken and what that's meant. And then we talked about where things stand at the moment in terms of kind of wider awareness and action on racial justice issues in the philanthropy world, and whether some of that momentum that we saw in 2020 and following on from the events then had been sustained, um, or whether there was you know more to do and whether things had kind of slightly reverted back to the mean. Um, so without further ado, um let's get into the conversation. Lots of great stuff in there. I hope you'll really enjoy it. I I certainly did. Um, and then I'll be back at the end for the usual bit of housekeeping. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Jake Ferguson and Vanessa Thomas. Hello to you.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Hi, Rodri. Great to be involved.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Hi, Roger. Hi, hi Vanessa. Um, well, great to have you both on the podcast. I'm really excited uh about having the chance to to talk um to both of you because I've I've kind of what we're here to talk about is the Beaba Foundation. It's something that I've uh been aware of for a while and had some conversations certainly with with Jake before in the past, um, which are really fascinating. So I'm really keen for everybody else to have a chance to hear more. Um people will notice that I haven't done my usual thing of giving people job titles, which actually is kind of relevant to what we're talking about, because it doesn't quite feel right for the sort of organization that Baebab is and what you guys are doing. So maybe the best place to start, Jake, if you don't mind, would be to say a little bit about what Baebab Foundation is, how it came about, and what the sort of story behind it is.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Thanks, Rodri, and and thanks for the opportunity to speak. Vanessa and I are delighted to sort of tell the Beaabab story as best we can. So um, if you think back to, and I'm going back now before uh the brutal public murder of George Floyd, to the sort of early start of 2020. And there are a number of us uh either involved in regional or national discussions about funding of black and brown-led organizations in the UK. And um, certainly Yvonne Field at um Ubeli at the time was um very concerned that COVID was starting to impact on charities' ability to uh attract money from donations and their usual charitable type activities. Uh, and many of us had known about the sort of uh disproportionate lack of money that was uh landing in the hands of particularly uh African and Caribbean heritage organizations in the UK. And most funders knew this uh and were you know either actively doing something about it or concerned about it. And a number of us got together on uh numerous Zoom calls at the time, some that were with the lottery, to really think about well, what can we do in the immediacy of uh having less money available to charities? Um, and then you know, I was starting to think about well, yes, if there are emergency grants that are available to help charities through the COVID period, that's great, but how are we gonna how are we gonna sort of uh impact on this in the longer term? And I was talking to somebody from the NARS project at the time, and we had a sort of side conversation like you often do on Zoom calls, uh, and we both felt that we needed to think of a mechanism that could actually attract serious amounts of money and then ultimately provide some form of endowment in the longer term or some structure that would mean that there was always money available for black and minoritized organizations, particularly the smaller grassroots ones across the country, and that you know, that money that was available was there in permanency, and it wasn't that they would have to go on the usual annual merry-go-round of trying to secure small amounts of money to survive when we all know that they use that money so efficiently to deliver amazing work. So it was the uh the birth of a set of conversations really about well, what could we do? And then obviously, every everyone knows what happened in the summer of 2020, and that really brought to sharp focus the need to really focus on how, particularly in the UK and globally, black communities are the victims of systemic racism. And we all started to think about well, the systemic racism in all parts of society, and particularly in the the world of funders and philanthropy, in that you know, we know that if you're black black, the chances are you're less likely of securing money for the the work you want to do at a community level. So um around about uh May, June started to I started to think about who were the key people needed to have in the room, and naturally, you know, went to some of the usual suspects from national uh um race equity organizations to start some dialogue, and we had our first uh open meeting. We weren't called Bayababa to begin with, we were just this idea of a uh black and ethnic minority uh um endowment was burst as a sort of term. Um, but we had our first meeting on July the 31st, and there were something like a hundred people on the call because we obviously had struck the right chord with people, and we were sort of saying, look, we need to work together to change the status quo because we the status quo is not doing us any favours and we really need to be coordinated. And this was at the same time as you probably remember some of the early conversations around the Phoenix Fund that Bubelli and a whole range of other uh equity organizations were talking to the lottery about. That's a separate conversation for another day, but I'm so pleased that we're now here in early 2023 to celebrate how far we've come in in a relatively short amount of time.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Yeah, that's that's great. And Vanessa, I don't know if you want to come in and just say a bit about when you got on board and kind of how that came about and and sort of what your you know what brought you to the project and teased you about it.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I came into the Baobab family a little bit later. Um, in a previous life, I used to work for um Comic Relief, and um as that funder, we were kind of having conversations about Baobab, and it sounded really exciting and innovative, and just everything that the sector needed. So I've been kind of aware of Baabab since 2020. Um, and then once I moved on from Comic Relief, I was desperate to kind of stay in the Baobab space, so would always attend the members' meetings and was just so excited by what felt like a really, really collaborative, collective, participatory, ground up type fund, and then um towards the end of that year, or maybe it was 2021, everything's just merged into one long piece of time. Um, Baobad Foundation were looking for kind of steering group members to um work alongside the project team and the network to help deliver this really exciting fund that was kind of born from inception. So that's how I've come on board, and it's been as I said, kind of just really beautiful seeing something be so ground up, but also now at the point where we're about to give out funding, we haven't had to compromise any of our principles, we've done it in a truly kind of power shifting, innovative way, and uh the possibilities still seem really endless. So still as excited as I was a year and a bit ago, um, and still very, very passionate about moving money urgently to black and global majority communities.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yeah, and I mean it sounds you know amazing what what's happened in a short space of time. And I guess both one thing both of you have alluded to there in your answers is that you know, a big part of the you know, the theory behind what you're doing is that you need to get those resources to those communities that historically have been underfunded and marginalized. But it's not just about getting the money there, it's about getting it there in a different way, perhaps than it's been done before. So I don't know, Jake, if you want to say a bit about what it is that's sort of unique about the way Baebab goes about deciding where to fund and how it actually funds as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

That's a good um observation, Rodri, and and Vanessa very much talked to the relationships and the importance of relationships in the evolution of Baebab. Very early on, you know, um just by way of example, I you know, I'd started to get conversations going, but I was in no means an expert in this space. What I was an expert in is in local community engagement, having worked at a CVS for 20 years, and I know how nuanced those conversations relationships are, but I've always been wedded to the idea that we must put the beneficiary first at the top of the power triangle. And um, you know, I I wasn't I chaired some of the early meetings, but I had a colleague um who was also male co-chairing with me, and quite rightly a number of people pointed out that why are two guys running this conversation? It should be you know gender equal, gender neutral. So you know, we made some early changes early on. We made sure that the steering group that were helping to create the framework with which Bayab lived was as varied and uh as possible in terms of people's background, lived experience, location. You know, when we're talking to members, people are saying, well, don't make this a London specific thing. You know, us guys up north, we always seem to hear about things too late or or very late in the process. So we were getting early flags as to how members who ultimately uh own Baebab, how members wanted to be engaged. So we needed to make sure we were very deliberate about uh how we did network meetings and you know we realized that this was going to take us a long long time to develop the Baebab philosophy and um funds and you know programmatic activity. So we all know that we were overturning, you know, 400 centuries, if you like, of oppression towards black and global majority people. So therefore, we weren't gonna come up with a solution in a week. It's a marathon, not a sprint. And a bit like any relationship, the more you invest in the early stages to get the principles and ways of engaging right, that will bear fruit. And I think, you know, often we do these sort of engagement events, they're often very one-sided. The funder or the person with power comes and shares their knowledge. People, you know, put their hands up, input, the funder or the power broker goes away, and that's the last you hear of them. And actually, this was about a continual dialogue, even to the point where we wanted to make sure members' meetings felt like you were coming home. It felt like it was a really empowering space to be in. So we were deliberate about making sure everyone on those calls got a chance to speak. Whenever we did activities, we would make sure that members were wherever possible leading that activity, even down to playing music at the start of meetings and doing really important spiritual and mental grounding before getting into quite often traumatic conversations about how we've all been impacted by systemic racism. And in this context, how you know you felt let down by funders, some members saying, Well, I can never really talk to the funder because it's like back biting the hand that feeds you, and all this sort of very colonial thinking that we had to slowly erode from our mindsets and find a new narrative and new language and new way of doing things that was spiritually uplifting, didn't repeat the harms of the funder, recipient, sort of by its nature, imbalance relationship. We set out very clearly to do this as a buy-and for um exercise. And I'm you know very pleased that we've we've pretty much got there and we've now got a got a board that um is part made up of the members, part made up of some of the original people involved, that uh um members were trained as peer reviewers to make the decisions about uh how the money's distributed. And I think not many funding mechanisms do that at all. You know, the expectation is that some powerful trustee you've never seen or a grant manager who you've rarely see makes the decisions about who get who does or doesn't get money. And we know historically that hasn't worked for us as black people. So we knew we needed to almost be uh I won't say it was a punk-like attitude, but we needed to disrupt uh the thinking that had gone on before us uh and to do things radically different. And that radic radical approach and that that really liberating approach, I think, has spoken to a lot of people, hence why so many members we would manage to get from zero members to over 400 in 18 months, and why our members' meetings are still a great place, a great space for positive conversations.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

That's that's fascinating. Vanessa, I'd be I mean, really interested in your take on that. But I I guess the other thing, building on what Jake said there as well, is having come from a background yourself of working in a in a big mainstream funder, what have you made of the response of other funders who've who've got involved in terms of their reaction to that different way of doing things?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Oh, Rodery, these questions are very juicy. But before before I get onto that bit, I I just want to echo everything that Jake has said and really hone in on the peer review aspect. So I know um quite a lot of funders now anyway say they're recruiting a committee or a team who will make the funding decisions, but typically this is the the whole process is kind of preordained, and then at the final stage, you have a group of five to ten people who rubber stamp the decisions at the grant manager or the trustees or whoever have made, and we were very, very intentional about not doing that, and that has meant that we've had to um build in time. In fact, we didn't build in enough time, so you've had to add in other meetings, but just as as Jake kind of touched on earlier, recognising that it's very much a marathon, not a sprint. So we took the time to um recruit 12 peer reviewers from across the the UK, and we didn't want this to just be people who say they've got loads of experience in philanthropy because then we just know we're limiting our network. Um, so we've really prioritised kind of um lived experiences, but also disability justice is something that runs through as a thread in all of our work. So, again, being intentional about making sure we're not just recruiting um the same old people and the same old experiences, um, and again making sure it's beyond London. So everything about even just the peer reviewer recruitment um at times felt painstakingly slow, but it has led to 12 fantastic, fantastic, fantastic um people with the most depth and range of experiences, um, abilities, expertise, and has made for a richer conversation. And their role has been integral. So they reviewed from the very beginning the um expressions of interest, and then from the expressions of interest, it was the peer reviewers who um deduced the list of organizations that we would invite to have a conversation with, and then again it was the peer reviewers who led these conversations, made the decisions on these collectively. So it's really felt like something I haven't been a part of a lot in philanthropy because the power has really, really been removed from the steering group from the project team, and at every stage we've kind of checked ourselves to make sure decisions that we're making feel like that that power imbalance isn't there. Um, so that is something that I'm definitely really proud of. And another thing to add on that is even with the design of the fund. So, again, typically in in philanthropy, this is kind of designed by the grants make grant making team, um, maybe a few people with lived experience if they're in the organisation, or maybe a few people externally review it, but it's very much done as an internal job job. And for this, we had community dialogues. Some of these were online when it was um a bit covidy, some of these were in person when it was safe to do so, and again, beyond London. So we went to Wales, we had conversations in Scotland, we went to Northern Ireland, we were in Manchester. Like, we were really intentional about making sure we spoke to absolutely anyone and everyone we could. And what was useful from that was again the the grant programme that we landed on was something that was really, really designed and fed in by the community. It wasn't just the Baobab team, it wasn't just the Baobab Steering Committee, but our members, our network, grassroots organisations who usually don't get a look in. So that has just been fantastic to see. And of course, there's lots of learnings and things we're reviewing and thinking about the next time. But in terms of just a first go at doing something that hasn't been done before, I would definitely give us a good, good, good high score. Um, and then to your second question, Rodri, um, was it something about, in fact, just remind me of your second question because I was too busy having fun with the first one.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

No, it was just about from your perspective, having worked in the kind of mainstream grant making foundation sector and come, you know, being involved in an organization that takes this very different approach that's sort of heavily weighted towards participation. What had you made of the response from some of the other grant makers and sort of philanthropic fundamental? That you have managed to bring on board so far to that very different type of approach.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Yeah, no, I'm glad you've asked that because whilst we are trying to do things differently in terms of our grant making and in terms of our governance, we also recognise that if in 10 years' time it's just Baababu operating in this way, we haven't been very effective. So we're very cognizant of trying to influence and shape and share learnings with our partners and organizations that have given us funding. So we had a couple of months ago a like funder sharing table where we we talked about our journey so far, um, next steps planned, how things are going. And what was interesting about that conversation was we could have just kind of done the gloss report and said this, this, and this has been perfect and nothing's running behind schedule and everything's fantastic because that's what funders want to hear, or we could be really honest about challenges or um points that have been slower because of X, Y, and Z, and actually just have conversations with our partners about the realities of doing this work. And I think that the funders that have supported us have recognised this honesty, and I'd like to think that by doing things like this more frequently and just thinking about other ways that we can um bridge the gap and shift and disrupt our philanthropy typically behaves. These funders will also have similar conversations with the partners they're working with, you know, because social justice and change isn't linear, and pretending that it is because you don't want to scare or bite the hand that feeds you isn't realistic. Um, and we've been quite open and honest with our funders about having those conversations and pushing back on things that just don't feel realistic.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Yeah, it's that's really interesting. And and one thing I wanted to ask actually, because it's I've heard from other funders and sort of intermediary organizations that are focusing on trying to bring together um philanthropist and philanthropic organizations on the one hand and kind of grassroots organizations or social movements on the other hand, that that often there's just a big challenge in terms of uh trying to deal with very simple things like the kind of the differences in language use that you get when you have organizations or individuals that are kind of coming from the perspective of uh you know lived experience or operating at the grassroots, and then organizations that are very technocratic and kind of talk in the language of philanthropy. What have you found in terms of those challenges and how have you tried to kind of make those meetings work?

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Well, I think again, this comes back to being very deliberate about the principles you want to live by. So certainly as a steering group, we were very clear that we wanted to bring our whole self to this, and we realized very early on that we were all on our own journey of self-discovery. We we we all accepted that you know we are um beholden to our own biases, and depending on where we are on that on that liberation journey. Certainly for myself, I learned a lot from colleagues in the steering group about you know um how white supremacy manifests within the philanthropic and uh giving world and stuff that I'd sort of half knew before, but actually hearing it from a colleague who's been there, got the t-shirt in a way that they're imparting their knowledge in order to help me build my own knowledge, you know, there was a lot of sharing of experiences in in the and and continue to now, in in that, you know, a number of the um committee were, for instance, had been involved in the Talawa women's movement, and you know, to have them help to shape what Baabab became was mission critical, because without that, we could have very much ended up doing something that was pretty much business as usual with a few tweaks on the outside, and therefore, because we were effectively wearing that liberation t-shirt, if I can use that analogy, it meant that when we were going into conversations with funders, we were we were more deliberate about the type of relationship and narrative that we were using, and being unapologetic about that, but also having the confidence to say, hey, you're using language which is sort of reinforcing what we as Baabab see as a major problem. Can we can we use different language? And uh you always need permission, you need to create the environment for people to make mistakes, mess up once or twice, and then actually you start to use a global language um biosmosis because you're spending more time together, you're giving each other permission to stay say stuff that is potentially difficult to hear for some, you know. And I think it it's the same for any sector actually. The sooner you can get to the nub of it and not beat around the bush, you've got to get straight to the point and call call things out when they need to be called out, but doing it a way do it in a way that's not aggressive, but you're all you're all you're all trying to own the positive outcomes that you're you're seeking to achieve. And I think again, it's all relational, in my opinion. Get the environment and the tone of meetings right from the outset, and whether that's playing music by Nina Simone, for instance, and everyone starts to get on a similar page, and therefore it means those tougher conversations can land easier. Because you know, we had to have some tough conversations with funders early doors, especially ones that you know didn't necessarily you know wanted us to be set up next week, and you know, and you can't do that. You know, we needed we spent a long time as a steering group considering our um constitutional status. Did we want to go down a sort of typical uh charity route? Well, we knew that uh some charities, particularly at that time anyway, in in light of George Floyd's death, were being vilified for speaking out. We didn't want government interfering with what we were trying to do, because in many ways we were pushing back against a government that hadn't been um uh helpful to us as black and global majority people over you know many decades. So we wanted to be truly liberated, we wanted a constitutional structure that would would allow us to be who we wanted to be.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

That's yeah, that's really interesting. It's something I wanted to ask about because I noticed just you know, doing the background reading for this, that in the end you've opted for a structure that is charitable in nature, but it's not a straightforward traditional registered charity. And I was going to say, you know, what what was it that you'd found too limiting about the traditional charity approach? And is it fundamentally that that fear that your voice and your ability to speak out on issues would be overly restricted?

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, it was twofold. So it was that, and we know that you know the charity commission can often be used as a weapon by government to vilify, particularly Brecken Brown organizations historically. And the second was about how you create a structure that allows for um joint ownership and global ownership with your membership. Now it's not perfect what we've got now, but it's certainly much closer to um an egalitarian, equitable approach than your classic charity model. And we sought lots of legal advice from different um sectors. We obviously talked to our members, and you know, it's not the most exciting topic talking about governance, but we we spent a long time on it because we we knew it was important and we were sort of future-proofing ourselves in a way that would allow us to be liberated in the future. So um, yeah, we spent a long, a long time on it deliberately, and I'm glad we did.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and a couple of other questions I wanted to ask about the structure, but I just wanted to come back to something that touched on um something Vanessa mentioned before, because you'd said about um the part of the rationale for the approach that was taken was all about genuinely kind of shifting power as well as moving um financial resources. Um and what I wanted to ask is is again, sort of thinking about bringing on board more traditional funders and trying to influence them. It always seems to me that one of the challenges around uh shifting power is that it lots of people are willing to get on board with the rhetoric, and it sounds great, and you can say in meetings, you know, we're very much about kind of shifting power. Um, but the reality when it actually comes to giving up power is that it's kind of necessarily uncomfortable if you are the one that had the power in the first place. Um, you know, what have you seen in terms of the kind of the response from funders to what you're trying to do? Have you seen them genuinely kind of facing up to some of that discomfort? And and and what is it that's making them do that? Is it a belief that it's just a necessary moral thing to do, or is it a belief that it will make them more effective as grant makers?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

That's a great question, and there's been differing kind of responses from funders. Some have got it from the get-go, and they're like, we trust you guys, do your thing, report back as and when, because we'd love to hear the learning. Versus um other funders who have struggled to kind of, or maybe struggle is not the word, but have been more apprehensive about funding going to individuals, for example, or funding going to um organizations that aren't constituted as charities. And I think kind of with what I touched on before about really being able to be open and transparent with um our partners, we haven't shied away from having that conversation. So, yes, you find it you you'd like to understand a little bit more about how we can make sure we kind of fund individuals in a way that ensures funding still goes to good use and they don't use the money for a trip to Miami. Let's have that conversation. We're not going to just say no, we're not doing it because it scares you a little bit. We'll have a conversation about the things that we're putting in place, which make sure the funding that we've got is used equitably, but also we're not giving our folks, whether it be individuals or organizations, four million hurdles to jump over just because you're a bit spooked. Um, some of the conversations have been easier to have than others, some we're still working through, but we have always been very open about the fact we're trying to do things differently, and because of that, we've been able to kind of push back where some funders have been more apprehensive.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Yeah. And and just picking up on that as well, one of the things I've I've heard from other organizations that slightly kind of sit in that that space of trying to intermediate or kind of connect funders and and individual activists or or movements is, I mean, partly the fear that the money is just actually going to be spent on things that are entirely non-charitable, but also, I guess, a fear from the funders that it might be spent on something that is in line with what they wanted to achieve, but is spent on tactics or approaches that's kind of more radical or outside of their tolerance for risk. Do you do you sort of see any of your the part of your role as Baobab to kind of help both funders and activists achieve the right balance so that you can find ways of funding things that are maybe beyond what an individual funder would be comfortable with themselves, but also you know they're happy with it because they've got you guys in the middle sort of bringing your you know authority and kind of a sense of comfort and reassurance to them, so that in the end the money gets to things that otherwise it might never get to.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah, absolutely. And I I think that's definitely why um Baobab offers such a kind of unique space because we can be that intermediary intermediary who um works with and supports organizations and individuals that funders just aren't able to at the moment. Um, I I do think it's important so yes, I I agree with you, there needs to be something on striking a balance, but there's something about um like an almost like an education piece or um a conversation piece on just the thing you said earlier, Roger, of power needs to be you'll be uncomfortable getting rid of and um not having the power and the the authority to make the decisions that you would have been comfortable making, but you're with this and you're with us because you recognize that the solution so far, or the way the model and way of working so far isn't effective, everyone agrees that. You also agree that the people who are probably best to have the to come up with the solutions and to do the work are those closest to the issue, the ones who are working on the issue at current, everyone's agreed that you also recognise that your foundation you might be working to make it more um diverse and representative of the beautiful different experiences and um people that we have, but you recognise that you don't have that yet at the moment. So I think there's a way of just holding that discomfort. And um, one of our co-conspirers, Marai, has a really beautiful thing where she she kind of encourages us in conversations and in meetings to name that discomfort and that challenge that you have. Don't shy away from it and um just mute yourself and don't say anything, but name the facts and voice the fact that that's uncomfortable, and then we can talk about why certain things are uncomfortable. I know, particularly in like um uh particularly in the British culture, it's it's very unnormal to kind of voice your discomforts, particularly when it comes to things around um race, if you just pretend that it's not a thing at all, and I think a lot of this work is voicing the things that you find uncomfortable and then interrogating why you actually find it uncomfortable because then when you interrogate it, you might actually recognise that it's not it's not a fear that is built on anything valid, but actually um prejudice and stereotypes and things that you can't quite rationalise. So I do agree with you, Roger, we need to find a medium of kind of bringing the more radical um ways forward with funders, but I also don't think that the movement should change. I think it's funders that need to change.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Yeah, no, I I mean I'd agree. I don't think you should find yourself in the position of sort of taming movements or making them pretend to be somebody not, because as you say, that basically takes us back to the starting point of what the problem was in the first place. But Jake, I don't know if you you looked like you had something you wanted to say there as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yeah, I mean I I 100% agree with how Vanessa set that out. And um I just think sometimes risk is relevant, you know, we should always remember risk is relative. So uh when COVID happened, you know, local authorities and health uh departments, um health trusts had to work differently because they couldn't use the same old uh rather archaic procurement systems because things needed to be done at pace in order to save lives. So a lot of positives came out of that. There was also some negatives. So, for instance, you know, we uh entrust the government uh of the day, uh largely speaking, as as taxpayers, and we expect government to make good choices, you know. We had a government during COVID that uh spent something like 35 billion pounds on a test and trace system that didn't work. But are we holding government to account for that money now? No, but if you compare that to then taking a funder taking the risk on giving you know a group of young uh black and global majority people say £5,000 to address uh systemic racism in their area, but none of them are part of a constituted group. Well, I know where I would put my major risk flags. Um, so for me, you know, we always have to make calculated and informed choices about risk. And we interestingly had a conversation with the steering group because we're sort of refreshing our risk framework, and even the language of risk framework feels very colonial, and we wanted to sort of turn risk on its head, yes, do the detail about identifying those risks, but also think about well, what is it we're doing to ensure our processes are liberatory, you know, and therefore the conversations we have with funders going forward, how do we make sure that you know, those conversations there isn't an inequitable balance in who has power? Because at the end of the day, as Bayabab grows and becomes more of an important part of the landscape, you know, we will eventually start to develop more power, but we have to make sure we don't abuse that power and we use that power for the greater good. And ideally, you know, we will become a model that other funders can follow because they've seen our journey, they've seen how we've done it, and realize that actually there's nothing overtly complicated about anything we're doing, it's just about taking due care, using the right language, doing things in a very deliberate way to ensure that we don't repeat power imbalances that so that you know that happen everywhere in life, certainly.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

And one thing I want to ask about actually, because uh increasingly I've sort of heard people make the argument that the measurement and the desire to kind of measure things in a very rigorous way in the philanthropy world has has, even though it's well-intentioned often, become a tool that essentially just kind of uh solidifies the power of the funder or the donor, because it's about their view of how things should be done, and that's where how the measurement systems are kind of designed. Have you found that you've you know heard both from the grantee organizations that you're working with that they've had issues with that, and also I guess on the other side with the um the funding organizations that have come on board, have you um had to sort of talk to them to get them to change the way they think about measurement as well?

SPEAKER_01 41:22

It's a good question, Rodri. And certainly a lot of the members that was one of their biggest complaints was the amount A was the amount of work you need to do to get the funding in the first place, and then when you've got it, it what often felt like disproportionate amounts of information that you then need to gather for your end of grant report or mid mid-year report. And I know because I've been on both sides of that camp, you know, when I was working in Hackney, we used to distribute about a million pounds worth of small grants every year to around 300 organizations, and I often needed to remind myself why are we asking for this information and what I'm actually am I actually going to do with it? It's usually I need to collect collate the sort of big numbers of how many beneficiaries there were from each grant, so that I've got to then go to my paymaster and say, look, we we spent your money properly, rather than I'm actually really genuinely interested in where the money went, who benefited, how they benefit, and so on. So we're in a constant dialogue with our members about uh our own beabad monitoring framework. I'm not sure if Vanessa wants to elaborate on my point. We lost her for a second there. But you know, again, it's really important that whatever we create is not something that will replicate power imbalance amongst the membership, i.e., if you're a small group, you haven't got somebody who can gather your data easily or produce a glossy report or knows about how to collect and analyse statistical data, whereas some of the larger charities or organizations we might fund might have access to that. So, how do we do something that's more equitable? So, Vanessa, I'm not sure if you picked up on the earlier conversation, but Rodri asked about how Bea Bab's um measuring um the impact of the money we'll be giving and how we're having the conversations with those who fund us about measurement and what sort of data and evidence we might share back with them. I'm not sure if you want to jump in.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Brilliant. Thanks, Jake. And hopefully I don't cover anything um you just touched on, but I think what what I'd add is um a huge contributor to this conversation is our peer reviewers. As you can imagine, the the kind of source of of knowledge and wealth um that they've gained just from this process, they have a kind of really detailed understanding of the organizations that have applied. And also from the conversations and calls they were having with organizations, they also know where organizations have asked for support in specific areas or um would like to focus on learning on this, this, and this. So what's been interesting is, and this is a process that's happening at the moment, we've been working through exactly what learning looks like with our peer reviewers as well, because we I think we made clear from the beginning that we weren't just gonna throw lots of documents at the partners we support and say, complete a 50 million page report so that we can tell our funders you're doing brilliantly. We want to make sure that the questions that we're asking are relevant and make sense, and we want to make sure that the people that contribute to this, as well as the grantee partners that we've landed on, are the network and the peer review network.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

Yeah, absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense and certainly complements what what Jake was saying. Um I'm aware we're in we're in danger of coming up to the hour, and I don't want to take up more time of yours than I requested. But I've got a couple of things that I'd I'd really like to just ask you before I let you both go. Um one I think just touches on something when I spoke to Joe Ferns, who's another person who's been involved in in sort of uh the story of Baabab so far, um talking about I thought was really interesting, was saying, you know, that part of the ambition for the organization, um, beyond just building your own endowment and doing the work you're doing, is as you say, to kind of influence others and the sector as a whole. And one thing he was saying is that, you know, it part of that is about creating a pipeline of people from grassroots organizations and particularly from sort of minority backgrounds who are then able to develop the skills and knowledge and experience that they need to then go off and influence in other places in the philanthropy sector and thereby kind of change it more broadly. Um, you know, is that something you're thinking about as you develop as well, that you're kind of offering potentially opportunities for people who might frankly be kind of shut out of a lot of existing organizations because, as we all know, there are quite a lot of barriers, uh, unfortunately, still in the philanthropy sector. Um, is that something you're thinking about in the work you do?

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Um, we've touched on it in the past. It's not necessarily a direct um strand of work that we're building out currently. And I know a number of big funders, the lottery being one of those, that have had opportunities for people from the grassroots sector to be involved in, you know, shadowing and and being part of the staff team for a set period of time. I suppose what's important is that if there are people from the grassroots movement going into sort of places of power, is that those places of power uh create the right environment to welcome those people because the last thing you want to do is to tick a box and say, Oh yeah, we had five grassroots people working with us for three months, and actually their experience as grassroots people is awful because they're going into a monolithic, and I'm not um uh naming any names here, but they're going into a monolithic, uh, very stayed environment that is just replicating all the um power imbalances that we have within society. So um I'd like to think that you know, with time, uh certainly the peer reviewers, we've spent so much time with them in a two-way dialogue, having them shape how Bayabab does its grant making, is that I'd like to think they would certainly have the confidence and the skill set, maybe not the CV, to go and become grant makers in their own right. I think that would be fantastic. Um, and I think as Vanessa said, the more opportunities and capacity we have at as Baabab to share our learning and share our journey, the more by osmosis that will impact on the sector. But also, you know, the funders still have the power, they need to want to do this, you know, and it it goes back to the sort of uh uh analogy of Black Lives Matter. So many corporates came out and you know said, you know, we support this. This is this is terrible what happened to George Fly. We need to we need to change. And they haven't really done that much. So I'm I'm not uh I'm not saying that funders won't change, but I think the wind of change is such that uh funders have to change. There is no excuse now for not looking at this in great detail. Ideally, um, funders who are on that journey who want uh uh people from the grassroots to help them change, I hope they pay them, I hope they respect them, I hope they listen to them, and I hope they create the environment that will mean that they're all equals around that table when they're talking about what sort of change they want to create. So for me, again, you have to be very deliberative. It's not a tick box exercise. I think that will only do more harm than good. So, yes, if some of our peer reviewers go on to create their own foundations, great. I like the concept of uh Bea Bab becoming a repository for uh well-endowed uh um foundations uh to perhaps give a slice of their annual um endowment percentage to Baebab. You know, one or two percent variance uh is factored into endowments on an annual basis. So most well-endowed um foundations wouldn't notice it if that 2% was shaved off and you know, allocated to the Baobab way of doing things. I think that for me is an area that we really want to build out and perhaps you know the topic for a future uh podcast, Rodri.

SPEAKER_02 49:44

That's yeah, that's really interesting. And I guess just to clarify people listening, I guess what you're talking about there is not traditional grant makers, so they're not really making you a grant and they're not investing in a sense, they're just taking the the endowed money that they have and handing it over to you for your endowment, so a kind of endowment transfer principle, which I think is fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

And especially especially those, I mean I'm sure Vanessa will want to speak to the your question, but particularly when you think about some so many of those uh endowments came from uh you know the receipts of enslaved Africans, you know, and I think there needs to be a bigger conversation amongst the philanthropy and funder world about uh that the notion of reparations and what that might look like in the UK context and how uh um uh mechanisms like Beaabab offer a potential uh part solution to how you get through the ethics of all of that. And I think you know that they will be places that I think Baebab needs to be in, alongside others who are perhaps um having internal conversations on this at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

And and yeah, I mean that certainly is the topic for an entire podcast in its own right that I'd be fascinated to talk about. But I'd I'd love to hear what what you have to say on that, Vanessa, and and also just to throw onto it my final question so that we can tie things together. Um I just wanted to know from your point of view, you know, it people listening to this who think, wow, this is fascinating. I really, you know, I'm enthused by it. What can they do as people working for grant makers, foundations, you know, if you're a donor, if you're a grassroots organization, what are the opportunities at the moment to get involved with what Baebab's doing?

SPEAKER_00 51:26

Yeah, um, thanks, Rodery. I think that uh your your question initially is a really interesting one. And as as Jake touched on, it's definitely something that you grappled with. I think, and I I think I'm speaking as Vanessa rather than as Baobab, but I think that there is quite rightly such a kind of excitement around all the possibilities and all the things that we can envision and that we can dream of. Um, and I think that's a beautiful thing, and I love that we can build something that hasn't hasn't been seen before, but I also want us to not try and do all the things at all times for every black and global majority person, and also don't want funders to expect that because I think there's a a kind of consequence of the met the mainstream guys sighing with relief and going, Well, we can just give our money to Baba, they're doing all of that stuff, like for us it's business as usual. Um, so I challenge everyone to think more about your question. Um, and I'd I'd also say that whilst I do want us to do things differently and not just be a regular Deggy grant maker, I want us to do the grant making exceptionally well, and I want us to prioritize isn't a word, but I want us to do that well first, and then also think about all the other spaces and containers and things we can hold, as opposed to trying to do everything all at once, maybe not that effectively. Um, and then to your second question: how can people get involved? That that's a good one. Um so if you go onto our website, which is bababfoundation.org.uk, um, there's more information there on exactly who we are and what we've been doing. We'll be announcing our first round of grant making very soon, so keep an eye on our website and our social media for that. Um, if you are a funder who is interested in supporting us, this is just the first round. We plan to launch our second round at some point in 2023. I'm not giving a date because we don't know yet, and I don't want to put pressure on the team, but at some point soon, and we're always taking your funding, but hopefully you've got the gist from this conversation that just because we might take your funding doesn't mean that we will dance to all of your tunes. So come, but know that we'll be wanting to work with you on this journey and not just do all the things you tell us to do. And if you are thinking about how you can make change in your organization, I I guess just just have a almost audit and look at who are you currently funding? Um, are you funding so you're thinking about racial equity and racial justice? Are you actually funding any black-led or global majority-led organizations? Or is all of this going through a middleman? And if it is going through a middleman, why? What are the processes and bureaucracy that you're saying is absolutely essential for organizations to receive funding from your donor? Is it actually just a hurdle which is precluding brilliant, brilliant, brilliant black little global majority organizations from applying? Is it a legal thing? Because sometimes I think funders say, well, we have to do this because we legally have to do this, and a lot of the time that isn't the case. It's just a rule that someone has put in because it makes things feel safer. So interrogate as Jake and I spoke about earlier, interrogate what that even means, what's risk, what's safer. Um, so yes, fund black-led and global majority-led organizations, look at your processes to make sure they're not actually precluding brilliance, and let these decisions be made by people who have the lived experience. So if it's uh a program for black and global majority people, those are the people who be making the decisions like moving power and shifting power is uncomfortable, but it's the only way we can do this work properly.

SPEAKER_02 55:29

Absolutely. And Jake, I don't know if you've got anything you want to add just on on the kind of opportunities for people to get involved.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Well, I think Vanessa captured it perfectly, actually. I think um the key thing is you know, allow us the time to get some things right in the first, you know, we're still we're a baby in the whole evolution of foundations um timeline. So um you know joining our members' meetings, you know, if you're thinking about being a member, it's a great chance to sort of dip your toe in, have a feel for the environment that you'd be coming into, and then becoming a formal member if you meet the criteria over time. So, yeah, um I think Vanessa captured all the opportunities that are available currently.

SPEAKER_02 56:13

Great. Well, yeah, and I'll put links in the show notes to the website and you know, places people can immediately kind of go to to find out more and if they want to uh get involved, as you say. Uh just remains to say thanks ever so much to both of you for finding the time to come on the podcast. Um it's been absolutely great to hear all about the work that you're doing with Baebab. Um, and I very much hope that at some point um further down the line I can get you back on uh to hear how things are going. And also because I've got quite a long list of questions that we didn't get around to today that I'd still like to ask you. So that would be great.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Well, definitely, Roderick, it's been a pleasure. Um, and you know, if there are um people within your network who or who are regular listeners who want to have a conversation with Baabab about transferring of power, then you know, by all means do get in touch.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

Yeah, for echoing that, thank you so much, Rodri. It's been a really enjoyable conversation. And um, yeah, like just keep in touch. We'd love to keep this combo going. Great.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

Thanks, guys. Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to you, Jake and Vanessa, for coming on the podcast. It was absolutely great to have a chance to talk. Um, I'm sure you'll agree it's a fascinating story, and I do encourage you to kind of check out more about Baebab and to keep following on as things develop. And I'll put links in the show notes to places where you can find that information. If you're interested more broadly in issues around philanthropy and how it works and what its role is in the world today, do check out whyphilanthropymatters.com where you'll find lots of articles and news and all episodes of this podcast and uh lots of other content to keep you busy for days and days on end, I would imagine. Um, also you can follow me on social media at Rodri underscore h underscore Davis on Twitter and also at Philiteracy if you like stuff more about uh history and sort of academic stuff about philanthropy. You can find me on LinkedIn as well. I'm also on Mastodon. Um if you like this podcast and you think other people might do that as well, do uh spread the good words, tell all your friends about it, leave us a nice review on iTunes or wherever else you get your podcasts, and we'll see you next time. Bye.