SPEAKER_00 0:00

Based giving organization based in Camden in North London. And for the last few years, Camden Giving's been doing lots of really interesting work around participatory approaches to their grant making, kind of involving people from the local community and from organizations that work there, and particularly some work with younger people who live in Camden, getting them involved in making decisions about how money is allocated. And that's where Maria comes in as well, because Maria has been through that process herself. So she's been part of Camden's participatory grant making, sitting on uh one of the panels, and then subsequently has been kind of helping other young people to get involved. So it's really great to have her perspective as well as somebody who's sort of seen it from the other side of things. Um so we sat down a couple of weeks ago now for conversation. We talked about how Camden Giving's um experiments with participatory grant making first came about and sort of why that was, what it was that was driving it. Um we talked about the kind of practicalities of how you make participatory approaches to grant making work. Um we talked about some of the challenges in terms of what you do if people don't necessarily agree and kind of how you manage uh things and find consensus or kind of deal with conflict where that arises. Um we talked about what um Natasha and and the team at Camden Giving had learned through taking this sort of approach and kind of what they had found most um interesting and inspiring and perhaps surprising. Um we talked about a bit of the kind of nuts and bolts of how the actual grants are given out, in what form, you know, over what kind of time period are the restrictions, what's the average size of grants, that kind of thing. Um we then heard quite a bit from Maria about her um experience, kind of why she got involved in the first place, what uh how she had found uh taking part and and sort of being part of one of those participatory groups, um, how she'd seen the decision making, um, what it had done for her relationship with Camden as a place, you know, is it something that had kind of deepened her understanding and strengthened her uh sort of sense of place, or did she already have that strong sense of place and that's what drove her to got get involved? Um and we talked about whether it had changed the way in which she thinks about the area and and kind of whether it had sort of changed her relationship with it over time. Um so without further ado, let's get into the conversation. This is a really interesting one. I really, really enjoyed this one. I hope you will do too. Um, I will put links in the show notes to things that you can read that relate to stuff that we talk about throughout the conversation. Um, other than that, I will get out of the way now, let you enjoy the conversation, and I'll be back at the end for the usual little bit of housekeeping. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Natasha Friend and Maria Ahmed. Hi there to both of you. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Hiya.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, hi. Great to have you on the podcast. Um, and we're here to talk about uh the work of Camden Giving, but particularly um the work that it's done around participatory grant making and kind of involving young people in interesting ways in some of the decisions about where philanthropic money's going. Um, maybe the best place to start actually is to ask you, Natasha, just to say a bit about you know what Camden Giving is for a start and how it came about, but also why you've ended up being so interested in this kind of participatory approach.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Of course. So Camden Giving was set up in 2017, and we're part of a wider network that is sort of informally linked of place-based giving organisations looking at philanthropy within a place in the UK. And I think the real appeal of setting something up in Camden is that Camden has one of the widest wealth gaps in the country. There is loads and loads of cash in in Camden. It's not a place where we need to attract more money. An awful lot of that money is coming from businesses. Um I I don't know how to fact-check this, but somebody said that the borough of Camden generates more wealth per year than Manchester and Birmingham combined. There's a lot, a lot of money in Camden. Um, so the art the idea was to be able to support the redistribution of some of that, some of that money. And on my first day, and I was the first member of staff, the steering group that was then to become a board, somebody just said, Oh, and obviously, if we can get some money from, you know, our main target at the time, and still is, it was to support money coming from the King's Cross development, which is managed by a company called Argent. Um, and if you don't know Camden really well, it's a it's a very shiny, lovely development where waterfall flows and palm trees are grown and you can buy yourself a 30 pound glass of wine next to some of the most deprived communities in the country. Um if we could get some of that money, why would the people around this table be the ones that decide how that money is distributed? And honestly, I reckon it was a 30-second conversation where everyone, oh yeah, yeah, obviously. Um so when we did then start to be able to award grants, we just started finding community members that were really connected into what was going on. I'd previously worked at John Lewis um in a corporate responsibility role, and John Lewis has had, I don't know if it still has, democracy coaches that support the staff of John Lewis to have a say in how the business is run. So one of those democracy coaches very kindly came and volunteered and supported our first grant-making panel. And we we gave it very little thought, and I think perhaps because the businesses that we were fundraising from were so powerful and are so powerful in Camden and have so much ability to change people's lives in all sorts of ways, change the air that they're breathing, change the roads they're walking down, change how safe they feel, change how important they feel in the place where they live. It seemed very natural that citizens should have some decisions to make over how money that was going to impact them was being distributed.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, really, really interesting. Lots I want to follow up on in the conversation. Um I love that idea that it this all seemed really obvious because it really isn't obvious when you look at most of how grant making is done. Although actually, in a way, it is obvious, isn't it? But um Maria, maybe you could just say a bit about where you come into the story and how you got involved.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

So I was um on one of the panels that was part of the decision making around three years ago. And I think just to second what Natasha said, I applied because I wanted to be able to contribute to the development of the community and being part of that decision-making process gave me an opportunity to ensure that the voices of people like me who've been born in the borough grown up here have been able to be part of that process and and contribute to that. So I think it's yeah, it's been quite an exciting opportunity and something that felt really empowering.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah, and and maybe let's I'd really like to get into a bit of kind of how this works in in practice. Um and so in your experience there, Maria, kind of what what actually went on, you know, once you'd kind of applied to be part of this and been accepted, what did the meetings you know look like? Who was involved, kind of how did the decisions get made?

SPEAKER_02 7:19

So it starts with kind of you get training in um participatory participatory grant making and and learning about how like the business model and how this works and how money gets kind of given into different um organizations, and which was really important, I think, for everyone on the panel who maybe didn't have an idea of it, but obviously wanted to contribute in that way. Um and then you get kind of more training on when you get the applications, how to see what um would be good to fund and what might not necessarily be good to fund. And yeah, it's kind of your hand is held in a really nice way through the whole process and you feel really supported. And for some of the young people on the panel, it's their first opportunity of having a job or being in the work world. So there's all the other bits that you learn along the way, like um um submitting your um bank details and filling in loads of forms, and you get support with that as well. So it feels like a professional development opportunity as well as being able to contribute to our community that we live in as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, and I'd love to ask a little bit more in a bit about kind of what you've got out of it in terms of your own personal development and and kind of your understanding of of Camden as well. Um, but I just wanted to see from Natasha's point of view as well, kind of how did you envisage this working when you you set off and were there kind of challenges that you had to, you know, or things that you had to work through and thinking how to make this work effectively so that you were kind of fair to the people that you were asking to give up the time to do that?

SPEAKER_01 8:42

The the real lucky thing that Campton Giving had from the beginning is that we well, I mean we still are, but really then we didn't have a website, no one really noticed or did so. We could have a little go at loads of different things, and it didn't really matter. And some things that we did really badly, I'm really ashamed that our first grant-making panel we didn't pay the people that came and contributed to it, and just like basic things now that I cringe cringe about. Um, but I think over time it's become really important to think about how we decide who decides and who who is involved, who is involved in this work and how we're not, as an organization, extracting from them more than more than we're getting. So, yes, we do pay people to be part of the work, and you know, we have a hot meal and we try and make it fun and all of the rest of it whilst people are with us, but that in no way would be sufficient if we were deepening traumas that people are bringing to us, or we are making it feel like money is easy to come by and easily spent and sort of doing damage or harm to people in that way. So we try and do which we try and make it so that when people are grant-making with us, it's an experience that feels like they are supporting people around them to not have to experience the same thing they felt. And that that is in some way a sort of healing thing. And people come with like really varied life experiences. I like I I don't want I don't want to I don't want to underestimate the strength of people that are grant making with us, including including you, Maria. Like people are doing brilliant things and making amazing stuff happen within their communities, but that doesn't mean we can sort of extract from them the fact that it's been Camden is a much harder place for some people than it is for other people. And we try and do lots of other things once people have finished grant making with us as well. So we're really lucky to have lots of businesses that support us, and we're able to support people into jobs in those in those businesses sometimes. We're able to support people where they've needed to advocate for advocate for receiving support from the council for various things. We've we're trying to be more than just more than just a sort of one-off experience where people come and tell us what's needed in the borough, and then they disappear and are never part of our network again. We have we have lots of parties that people come to. Um, I know that lots of friendships have been formed through grant making. And yeah, we we try to make it more than just us extracting, extracting information from people.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

And that's really interesting. I just wanted to follow up a second just to say, because it feels as though when you're talking about participatory grant making, in terms of the value of it to an organization like yours that's doing grant making, there's the one bit which is about, you know, is this a better, you know, more effective way of getting money out to the right places? Is it just a fairer way? Or is it also about the value of the process to the people who are involved in the decision making? Do you how do you think about the sort of balance between those different things and how much you emphasize them?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Um I we absolutely have moved towards a point where the most important thing is how this brings about active citizenship and citizens seeing themselves differently in Camden to how they previously might often. Like that that's part of a much bigger ecosystem of other funders acting in this way and the local authority acting in this way, and businesses acting in that way as well. It really like the work that we're funding does really, really matter. Um, Camden is not a safe place for young people to exist. Like this is a place where young people have lost their lives sort of five minutes walk from a Space NK. Like that really matters that work is funded to stop that from happening. But it also really matters that citizens see themselves as more than just the receivers of services that charities provide or the council provide. So that is, yeah, the the active citizenship and the social cohesion and the bringing together of communities feels like the really important work that we're doing. Um yeah, uh the that's not to say that the work we're funding isn't important as well, though.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah, absolutely. And and Maria, I'd love to come back to you on this because you mentioned before about sort of what you yourself had got out of being involved. Maybe you could say a little bit more about that in terms, you know, what do you feel like you've kind of learned about yourself or how do you feel like you've developed through, you know, taking on some of that responsibility for making these decisions and being part of it.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

I think first of all, it's definitely reaffirmed my passion for working in the community that I live in and have grown up in. I think I wouldn't change that for the world. And in my current role, I'm a case manager in the youth justice service. So I work with young people within the borough who are at risk of offending or have offended. So it's definitely reaffirmed my passion for that and then kind of to appreciate like VCS organizations and the value that they have and what they can do for our community and how they can support them with different things. Um I think Natasha mentioned earlier I was able to support a young person that I now work with, apply to the panel, young people's panel role, and be on the panel. And that for him, he just talks about what an incredible opportunity and experience it was for him and something that he feels that he wouldn't have been able to access independently or have known about. And sometimes it is frustrating because it feels a shame when I work with young people and they say, Oh, well, I wouldn't have known about that if I hadn't come here or if I hadn't got into trouble and come to the Youth Justice Service. So it's kind of it makes me think about how we can have these opportunities accessible without having to be at a crisis point, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, absolutely. And and is it, I mean, I guess because you're it sounds like you know you're you're from Camden as an area and you kind of know know the place, but do you feel as though kind of doing this stuff and being involved in in the participatory grant making has kind of given you new insights into the area? Do you feel like you know the area better as a result?

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Definitely, because you know, having lived here all my life, there's still obviously organizations and great work that's happening that you won't know about. So even I think a couple of weeks ago, I was invited to come and uh to one of the panels and support my young person who was also on the panel and hearing about some of the organizations that are out there and the work they're doing. And I, you know, sometimes you have no clue that new organizations are coming about or different work that's happening. So it just makes you feel really connected, which I mean you could tell from the smile on my face. It's it's exciting that you hear about these things and then you're able to kind of link in with them and potentially work with those organizations.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, no, but it sounds brilliant. Um and Natasha, I guess you know, there's a lot of you've talked quite a bit there about um the value to the you know the young people who are involved through these um these panels, but obviously for you as a grant maker and you as you know an individual working in a grant maker, I'm sure it goes the other way as well. So, what are some of the things that you found kind of most surprising or where you feel like you've really learned something through you know, kind of being involved in in this kind of process?

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Goodness. I don't, I don't, I almost don't know, don't know where to start. I should say we don't just do grant making with young people, about half of our grant makers under 25. So we're working with people that are um experiencing inequality for all sorts of reasons. What what have we learned? Oh my goodness. I mean, every single time we have, and we do loads, like I'll spend two or three evenings of my week grant making, and every single time, and have done for eight years, every single time I come away with something, and I think that is I've never seen this work that way before. We like to play a little game in the staff team of like, or what would what would we fund um versus what ends up getting funded? I should say, like a lot of the staff team have grown up in Camden, and I I don't want to sort of say there's the staff team and then there's community panels. It's um it's uh a staff team that some who have been on community panels, like, but we still end up with different perspectives and we've been funding for a while, and there are absolutely times where I think God, just from a fundraising point of view or from a soft political point of view, it'd be really helpful if we funded this organization. I'm so glad that in eight years we've never funded an organization because it's helpful to Camden Giving. We've only ever funded organizations that have been wanted by communities. Oh, the insights are absolutely endless. And they're always very live. Like I'll I'll see, I'll see a grant application and think, oh, that's a really solid application. Everything they're doing is solid there. And then somebody will say, Well, the thing is, no one feels safe to walk down that road that it's on. So, and it's like, oh, well, that blows everything out of the water. Like, there's absolutely no point in putting money behind that organization if people are too uh nervous to walk down that street or it has a reputation for not being a place that people have had a positive experience for going to. And on the flip side, uh one of the organizations that we funded in the meeting, Maria was in recently, I think does good, good work, but the absolute reason that it was funded was that the amount of there's usually about 12 young to 12 people on a community panel when we're grant making, the amount of that 12 that knew this guy that was running this project, and not in a like, oh yeah, I've heard about a bit. Like people were saying, oh, I know people whose lives are fundamentally completely different because of that, this the work this man's doing. Just the community reputation of people and work that's happening is so important in our in our grant making, and that's I've I've learned so much about that. I have a massive soft spot for an arts project, so I like always lean towards an arts project, and I've loved it every time it's been pointed out that that may not actually be the best way to solve a community problem. Um I I equally love it when sort of things that have been funded that are really creative and they're building cohesion in a way that I haven't totally understood from an application, but has made sense to a community is really beautiful as well. But yeah, so so many, so many things.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

So just just to clarify on on kind of the role that you play as the organization, kind of uh you know, organizing these panels and hosting them, you're you're obviously, you know, you're not directing what happens, because as you say, you know, sometimes these things uh kind of end up going to things that wouldn't be the ones that you would have chosen. But I'm assuming it's also not that you just don't do anything. So, kind of how do you help those panels in terms of providing them with the information, or do you kind of pre-filter any applications? How does it work?

SPEAKER_01 19:50

So we'll support all of our panelists before they look at applications or before they start setting criteria for a fund to understand the lay of the land in funding. And you know, say we have £100,000 in a pot, that sounds it is a lot of money. If I like if Maria gave me £100,000 today, I'll be absolutely delighted about it and start planning holidays. Um, but it you know, in the grand scheme of philanthropy, it's it's not huge amounts of money. So we do a bit of work to sort of think about what can be done with that money and what who else is funding what's going on. The panel that Maria supported a young person on recently had, we had some people from the council come and talk about what they're doing, funding in that space, and sort of understanding how they're a piece and a puzzle. We'll provide lots of publicly available data and try and break it down in a in a meaningful way. But really, most of that training is sort of supporting community members to know what they already know and to feel confident in that. And I think very often people that join our grant making have been told in big and small ways that they are not the people that hold power in a community. And us we're trying to undo some of that and supporting supporting people to feel they have they have the right to make decisions in their community, we'll tell them some horror stories about the quote unquote professional funders and some terrible funding mistakes they've made in an attempt to reassure people that there's there's not some magic solution to funding that other people are doing and that they haven't, they don't know about. Um so yeah, we are trying to like fill gaps in knowledge, and I definitely don't think there's a difference between data led grant making and participatory grant making. Um, we can support our community panels to have that data as well, but also to have their lived experience, for want of a better term, being at the forefront of making decisions.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Yeah, absolutely. And and Maria, I'd really love to ask you just on what Natasha was saying there, it really reminded me of um I've sort of sat. On a participatory grant making um project up in Liverpool, and what I think I was really struck by was exactly what she was saying, which is everybody in the room started off again, it was a hundred grand that they were giving away, and they were like, wow, this is loads and loads of money. And then as soon as they started actually thinking about what they could do with it, they thought, oh, this isn't very much money. Did you have conversations like that in the groups that you've been involved in? And kind of where did people you know end up sort of coming down on that?

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Definitely, I think, yeah, in when you first hear you're like, wow, this is a lot of money. But then when you actually start to have those conversations, you realize actually it's not a lot. But then I think it's it's not even just about giving out the money. I think it's about creating the opportunities and the partnerships and actually the long-term solutions that you're thinking about. And it's nice because we all have different experiences and we come from, you know, it's a really nice diverse panel. But then you're also thinking about what would benefit your neighbours and other members of your community. So it's a space that everyone's able to contribute and consider those decisions together. So it feels really kind of authentic when you're making those decisions about kind of what is funded.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

And did you feel I'm really interested in be able to phrase this in quite the way to get at what I mean? But when you're sitting on that panel, did you feel as though it's you as an individual just bringing your point of view to the table? Or did you feel like you were kind of had a responsibility to represent any kind of wider community? You know, were you thinking actually, you know, I'm I'm here kind of speaking for you know younger people or my particular part of the borough, or was it just right, this is what I think about it?

SPEAKER_02 23:31

I definitely think that I well, I can speak for myself. I feel like I was representing a wider community because while you're bringing your own experiences to the table, I think you're keeping it in mind the people you work with, your neighbours, um, the people you've grown up with and the challenges that they've also faced growing up and how it's you know affected you as well. So I think, yeah, I think I always kept in mind kind of the diverse needs of a Camden and our community and made sure that like the decision making was reflective of that and not just I know you definitely bring yourself and your own experiences, but the experiences of everyone around you shapes that as well. So I think was definitely bringing the wider community.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

And and the other thing I wanted to ask as well, because you hear this a lot from talking to people involved in you know all kinds of grant making, is that you go into it and you think, oh, it'll be great, because it's all about sort of you know saying yes to things and giving out money. Whereas actually a very large part of the job is unfortunately saying no to other things, which are often really good. Did how did you kind of deal with that? Did you find it a bit difficult sometimes to see these applications from organizations and think we definitely could fund all of this, but obviously you you can't?

SPEAKER_02 24:34

That is the difficult part because you can't fund everything. There's so many good applications and so many great organizations doing amazing work. But then I think that's where it's just perfect because you've got a panel that has different views and will be able to, you know, make you think, hang on, well, this is my experience, or or have a question about something that makes you think, you know what, maybe we should fund something else instead, or maybe we should fund this, and that's why it just works so well together. It's like jig jigsaw pieces coming together.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

And and were those conversations relatively, you know, easy and did everybody kind of on the same page in terms of if there was a not even a disagreement, but kind of different points of view about what should be funded, did people manage to work through that in a fairly positive way, or did you have any times where actually it was a bit more difficult to get everybody to agree or to find a way through it?

SPEAKER_02 25:21

I'm trying to think back to our panel and I remember it being pretty peaceful, Natasha. I don't think there was kind of really like, you know, clashing or biting. I don't know if Natasha, you wanted to add anything there that.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Can you think of any I was just wondering if there have been examples because you I mean you would just assume that sooner or later there will be kind of more contentious issues or things where people might have a disagreement.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yes, you would think that because everything the media and the world tells us is that everyone is falling out with everyone all the time and no one can agree on anything. We've done participatory grant making with 350 people, and honestly, the it's completely life-affirming to me that people just don't fall out. And I sort of praise the people at Camden Giving that do the facilitation for that a bit, but I think the more generally it's that people are decent people that actually are not falling out about things and are able to listen, understand to other people's experiences to a far greater extent than we give humanity credit for. We interview everyone that comes and joins a panel with us, and there definitely have been times when people have said in those interviews things like, I don't think the white working class community in Camden is getting enough support, you know, my community is not being looked after enough, and then have left us saying, I completely didn't see how this is experienced by the Somali community in Camden, are having a completely different experience to my white working class experience, and I have a far richer and more empathetic um view of how funds are distributed and people's experiences of this borough, and that you're like on the whole, people are really, really willing to listen and understand. And we've had we we run a rolling grants panel where you know we meet sometimes weekly with that community panel and they're awarding small grants, and therefore people sometimes have studying, and you know, other people from that team are not able to be there. And it always amazes me how you might have a time when there's not any single mums in the room, but the people that aren't single mums have heard the experience of single mums from previous sessions and will say, Oh, can we make sure that we're like we'll we'll advocate on behalf of people that aren't in the room. Um, and I think I think that we're obviously a local organization, although we do do work with national organisations. I think that the division that's happening in the world, and I think that the factors that led to the riots last summer in the UK and all of this, I I really do believe that if there were more tables for people to come together and make decisions, not be consulted, make decisions on money and things within their communities, it would lead to far greater sorry, for want of something less sappy, like humanity and care for neighbours. And I I think it has huge working in a participatory way has a huge potential that funders and government are nowhere near realizing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, well, I want to come back in in a bit to that question of sort of how much wider this stuff can go and whether it can work in other places or you know, whether basically you know all funders should be should be doing it. Um I just wanted to ask, because you you mentioned there about sort of the in small grants being made, just some of the nuts and bolts um in terms of you know, once these decisions have been made, what kind of funding are we talking about? So in terms of what's the average amount, you know, what kind of time scales, are they unrestricted grants? You know, what is it we're we're looking at?

SPEAKER_01 29:17

All sorts of grants, and we run three or four different programs a year usually, although there's lots of there's lots of grant making we would like to be doing that we're a fundraising foundation, so we we don't have an we don't have enough money for everything we'd like to be doing. But um we run a small grants fund that we've run in partnership with the local authority, but it's funded mostly by businesses from the borough, and Camden Council has been working in a mission-oriented government way for quite some time. So it's a mission-oriented small grants fund, and it mostly gives grants directly to citizens to run social action projects that um meet we meet one or more of those missions, and they're up to £2,000 and it's money directly into citizens' bank accounts, and we support them with things like insurance and safeguarding and DBS and all of the boring stuff that needs to happen alongside the apple picking project that you're also running. Because unbelievably, we have an apple picking project in in Camden with a group of people that are going around getting apples from people's backgardens and taking them to food banks and many other very creative things that would be too long for everyone to listen to. Um, they those citizens can come back for a £5,000 grant as well, and that's also run through this rolling fund. And then we have youth funds that we run as a separate separate fund. They are grants of up to £100,000 and they're multi-year funding, and they're mostly aimed around the safety of young people, but young people are acutely aware of the complexity of that is involved in youth safety, and the you know, tutoring is an important part of ensuring young people are safe and all sorts of things are. And then we have uh unrestricted grants of up to £30,000 that go to equalities organisations in the borough as well. Um, and yeah, that but within each of those, the strategy for the grants, you know, not or whether or not the grants even existed in the first place, actually, has been decided by our alumni, who Maria is part of, which is a group of these 350 grant makers that are voting four times a year on decisions around our grants. We do have a board of trustees and they are signing off grants that are above £5,000, but they're not going, they're not deciding should we fund that youth centre or that youth centre. They're signing off based on the experience of the panel. So what we'll do once a panel has awarded grants with us is we'll check in on whether or not they felt they've had the support to do this, or if they just had £100,000 chucked at them and told them to award some grants. So if a panel said, I don't feel I've been well supported to make decisions around this, that's when the trustees would step in and say, hang on, something's not working with the process here. The trustees are not checking the decisions, if that if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Yeah, absolutely. And just to check, is is all of Camden Giving's grant making done through this model app sort of participatory stuff, or is this still a part of it? And then there's other more kind of traditional grant making as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

No, the staff and trustees have never awarded a grant at Camden Giving. People are still really nice to me, though, as if as if uh I might I might make a decision on a grant.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Yeah, it's amazing the allure of it.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah, and Maria, I just wanted to ask you a bit about that, um, what Natasha was saying there about, you know, after having been involved originally that panel being part of this kind of wider network of of alumni that are involved. You know, what what's your experience of of that been and what kinds of things have you been involved in helping to think through?

SPEAKER_02 32:59

I do have to say it's pretty cool to be part of the alumni um because there's different parts of it. So you um find out about opportunities in the borough, whether that be um job opportunities or events that are going on or um workshops to improve your CV, for example. So there's that side of it. So you feel like it's not just you have the last panel, and then it's like, okay, bye, see you later, thanks for your input. We're not going to hear from you again, but you just feel part of a wider community, the Camden Giving community. And then there's also the voting that Natasha mentioned. So again, you still feel like you have the say um to make like I can't remember what the last question was. I think it was about what for the panel that was have just happened, um, what they should have as their focus areas, wasn't it, Natasha? And it's quite nice because I think Natasha mentioned earlier that it's not about consulting people or the community, but it's about them being part of decision making. And here it feels like community is being listened to and they're actually being given the tools and resources to create change rather than just, you know, yeah, we're doing things to you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

And and do you think I'm always really interested with things like like participatory grant making and also kind of place-based approaches, whether it kind of in order for them to work, there has to be a certain amount of people having a sense of place or there being enough kind of you know, social capital and people wanting to get involved in order for it to kind of get off the ground, or whether actually it's a way of strengthening those things. Do you think for you know, in terms of what you've seen, that people had a strong sense of Camden as a place or kind of wanted to get involved and that helped? Or do you think actually, you know, getting them involved has has kind of that's the thing that has sparked that in people?

SPEAKER_02 34:40

I think it's honestly a bit of both. I think people are very, very proud to, you know, call Camden home and and be part of the different communities in Camden, but then it can sometimes feel like you're not being heard, or you know, when uh especially when there's different challenges and experiences that lots of the community is experiencing, and it's kind of what I was saying earlier about things happening to you and and and you just being consulted, but the decision already being having it was already made. Um, and then there's the part of it where when you are coming together, it feels really empowering. And it's like, oh my gosh, this is it's so nice to sit in a space with a panel of people from your community, but having had different experiences and still come from different places is really exciting. So I definitely think it's a bit of both. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yeah, no, absolutely. Um and and Natasha, just come back to that. What I was mentioning before, in terms of, you know, you sort of mentioned there about whether some of this stuff could could kind of happen more broadly. And I wondered whether the particular experience of Coming Giving, you know, is it that it's worked there just because you took the decision from the outset to do this? Is it partly about the nature of what you're doing because you're a kind of place-based giving scheme? And so it kind of makes it maybe a bit easier. And and if we're thinking about trying to get more types of organizations to, you know, at least experiment with, if not kind of just, you know, do participate pay two grant making outright, is it about finding ways of doing that in other places, or is this something that you know all kinds of funders could be thinking about incorporating?

SPEAKER_01 36:11

I've um we we do various bits of consultancy work. So we have worked with and we are working with foundations that are working in a bigger geography than Camden, and some that are working in the smaller geography actually than Camden, and we've done some very like some sort of state-based funding as well. There is something really magical about participatory grant making in place and having, like I said, people that know which road you're talking about, and they know which community leader has a good reputation, and that stuff is really magical. And once you get beyond a borough, where we've done stuff across London, you all you already lose that. You people that live in Camden do not know what's going on in Brixton, like you already lose that if you go as big as London, you certainly lose that if you go as big as the UK. But there's still it's still worked really well when we've done England wide grant making with funders, and we've done it on Zoom, so it's different, but it's it's workable, and you bring insights into grant making that you wouldn't, that you wouldn't otherwise have. And we've worked with a foundation that did it as a sort of staff and participatory grant making model. There's so many ways to do a hybrid version of participatory grant making to make it work within within an organization. I do think I think there's so much potential, and there's some sort of positive stuff that's coming from the lottery, and the word participation was in the civil society covenant stuff that came from central government, although what that actually means in practice, I don't know. Um, but there are sort of noises of participation coming from far bigger funders than us. I think we have a bit of an issue in the UK, well maybe globally as well, of like who is going to hold these spaces and who is going to support communities to do participatory grant making. Uh, Camden Giving, that's people that have come from frontline services. And I I that they they haven't awarded grants before, but they know how to work with communities and they know how to handle safeguarding and they know how to ensure that we're not just working with, I don't know, like the head, the head, everyone would send us their head girl type person to like I think that skill set of being able to go beyond the sort of head girl, sorry, and then we we definitely have some head girl type people that join our participatory grant making, but sort of having a a wider voice of people that genuinely may feel much lower levels of power. I think that skill set is is lacking in in this country, and it does exist, it just doesn't exist within foundations. And we think we'll need to sort of think differently in order to get to scaling participatory grant making across the country and therefore realizing the potential that it can have in communities.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

And and just to follow up on that thought, you I think I know you've started to speak a bit about um sort of the the infrastructure that might be needed to make this stuff happen uh more widely. And and I guess you know, to build on what seems to be a bit of a ground, you know, groundswell of uh enthusiasm, and often funders just don't quite know how where to start or how to go about it. What do you think are some of those bits of infrastructure that are lacking at the moment that we need to put in place?

SPEAKER_01 39:43

There's definitely a need, you know, just some of it is just bake basic legal frameworks. Like we need places that can hold money and distribute grants within communities and sort of fiscal hosting type stuff needs to exist in communities, and some of that will start getting set up with um the neighbourhood boards that is that stuff that's coming out of central government as well, and hopefully that leads towards some of that. Um, it would be really, really helpful to have legislation that allowed you to pay people who are in receipt of benefits to be part of participatory grant making. Um, I think that would help a lot of funders be less freaked out by giving people. I mean, what is no one is getting rich off of participatory grant making, and it usually is a temporary amount of money. It should it shouldn't affect someone's benefits, and it would be really good if some tiny bit of legislation that could allow for that to happen would support participatory grant making across the country. I think that there does need to be some big effort to support people from frontline work into facilitating the movement of money. Um, because I think that because it's worked so well in Camden to work with people who are brilliant at frontline work to distribute money, and the lottery are doing like through their U Decide fund, hopefully that can lead to there being this sort of cohort of people that are have the skills to do frontline work. Because participative grant making is frontline work, I think. It's it's not it's it's funding, but it is also you know, for close contact that requires all of the safeguarding and all of the careful thought that frontline work does. So I think we need to upskill people in order to do that. Um, I think there's everything's I think this is this is like a therapy session, it's brilliant. Um there's not a great deal of evidence being collected on how well participatory grant making works. Um, it's slightly frustrating that we would need to do that because it just does, to my mind, feel like it's the right of communities to make decisions. So you shouldn't, you wouldn't, you no one's well actually no people are evidencing other justice-based work, but it I think we may need to evidence that participatory mark making is both more effective and building cohesion in communities in order for it to have a sustained approach and for you know philanthropy is no money at all, really, isn't it, in comparison to government money? And that is the ultimate prize is that communities can have more say over government money, and therefore I think we probably need better evidence on its impact.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Yeah, absolutely. And and Maria, I just wondered, you know, from your um perspective, having taken part in this and now kind of say helping other young people to kind of get involved as well. What do you think of the things that have made it work? And if you were thinking about somebody, you know, a young person in a similar situation elsewhere in London or outside London, what do you think of the things that would kind of make make it work if somebody was trying to get them involved in a similar kind of uh process?

SPEAKER_02 43:08

I think um I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. One of the things that is really helpful is the fact that the young people are paid and they're valued for their time and it's not work experience or it's not uh an opportunity for your CV where you're not valued financially as you would be in any other job. Um, it gives young people an opportunity to have a legitimate income, whether that be for a small amount of time. Um, so I think definitely that is something that is important because then you do feel valued for your time and you don't feel like Natasha mentioned earlier that you're just getting information extracted from you but not actually being valued yourself. And then I think the what I was mentioning earlier about the the long term, the longevity of it, and actually, yes, you've contributed to something, but how can you be part of an organization of a community that is able to support you and still feel involved and still feel empowered? It comes with a lot. Something I didn't mention earlier was that another opportunity um people on the panel have is to go to the organizations and see how they've got along. I think there's a nice name for it, isn't it? It's a coffee and chat. Am I right? So that's another opportunity to you know stay in touch and and see actually, this is where I decided that the money should go. But what is that organization doing now and and what does the work look like? So I think it's there's just so much that goes into it, and those little bits that come together makes it work.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

And and just on those, actually, do you know of any uh you know from from uh friends of yours or people you've been involved with where they've done those coffee and chats and then they've kind of stayed involved with those organizations, either kind of working with them or or kind of doing stuff after afterwards?

SPEAKER_02 44:43

I don't have a specific example, but I know of um other people on panels that have gone to the coffees and chats and seen the great work and themselves wanted to be involved just as residents, for example. Um so that definitely happens. And I think yeah, it's just it's it's a network opportunity as well, isn't it? It's for to see what's out there and kind of yeah, feel and then feel reassured that wow, I got to be part of this decision making and this is what's happening with it, and you can see it in front of your eyes rather than read it on an application or watch a video. So that's quite cool.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Yeah, absolutely. And Natasha, I just wanted to ask one one last question before I ask a last last question. But um, it just occurred to me when you were talking a bit earlier about saying that you know, obviously you still have to fundraise as an organization because you're not endowed or anything like that. But it does the the fact that you've got this model of participatory grant making, is that sort of one of the things that appeals to your the people who are giving to you? Is it kind of because obviously you're a place-based organization, so part of it might be about uh caring about Camden, but do you think it's kind of an added layer on top of that that you take this kind of approach?

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Some of our supporters, yeah, are inter are interested in participatory grant making. Um we've had people sorry, organisations give to us where their staff have said, and can we can we come and observe and be be part of it? And as as as long as they're respectful of the power dynamic, we're really up for that. One brought lots of donuts, so that's so she could definitely come again. Um said some, but I I think generally not well, actually, it's impossible to do a sweeping statement across all donors. A lot of donors would really like us to be able to say, if you give us £100,000, we are going to spend it on this, this, and this. And that's absolutely impossible for us to do. And sometimes we can give a sort of guesstimate of where money might go, but really it is just that, and that is that is tricky for people to get sign off because of their governance very often, but also just tricky from a different mindset of giving funding to us. Um, but some donors we get quite a lot of funding from those people that are developing land in the borough, and they know that they can't work very well with communities because communities don't really like land developers. So they're really like, and you can do this at Camden Giving. So they were they're quite open to the fact that participatory grant making fits quite well in terms of a community engagement that they know they wouldn't be able to do. So, yeah, different, different things for different people, I think. We we we do turn down money if people want it to be restricted to something.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah, that's really really, really interesting. I'm aware we're coming up on time, so I'm gonna let you both go. I just wanted before you before I do, just to give you a chance, if there's any sort of final thoughts you've got, things that you've got coming up that you think uh you know you'd like to point people's attention to.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

I suppose I probably wanted to say that I don't think we've um we've fixed we've fixed everything and arrived at some perfect. If I've I've probably talked about all the things that are great and that we love, there's lots of there's lots of things that are really tricky and knee-dumping within participatory grant making. And we're a small organization, which means we can we can try all sorts of things and we've tried comparing AI generated grant decisions versus participatory grant making decisions and things that we know we're trying to do things we know larger funders can't do, so the the stuff that we're learning can be useful to the wider sector. But yeah, I there's there's many, many like contradictions within all of this work, I suppose, is what what I would like to say.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

I guess being positive but not making it seem like it's easier than it than it is, because it does say work, as you say. And and Maria, yeah, what would you know what's your sort of final thought on if you had to just you know if you had 30 seconds of somebody's time to to give them your thoughts on participatory grant making, what would you what would you say?

SPEAKER_02 48:36

I think it's pretty cool. I think it's very empowering. And like Natasha said, there's you know, there's things that we've still got to come a long way with, and I think there's lots of challenges and difficulties that our community is experiencing, and I don't ever want to take away from that because that still exists, but this does give a sense of hope and an opportunity to be part of something special.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Brilliant. Well, thanks ever so much to both of you for coming on the podcast. It's been great to hear all about the work, and yeah, wish you all the best, and maybe uh you know we'll catch up a few years down the line and see how things have developed.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

Thank you so much. Thanks, Roger.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to Natasha and to Maria for coming on the podcast. Uh, really great to have a chance to talk to both of them and get their perspectives on the work that Camden Giving's doing around participatory grant making and the kind of wider uh possibilities for participatory grant making in the UK and beyond. Um, as I say, I'll put links in the show notes to places where you can find a bit more information. Um, if you're interested more broadly in issues around philanthropy and civil society and want some things to read um or to watch or to listen to, do check out the Why Philanthropy Matters website. Um, lots of articles there. There's also guides to topics on philanthropy. Uh, there's all the back episodes of this podcast. There's various bits of video about events and things that I've spoken at, so there's all kinds of stuff to get your teeth into. Um, you can also find contact details for me there if you want to get in touch, particularly if you've got ideas for topics we could cover on this podcast or people that I could speak to that might be interesting. Uh, if you want to keep up to speed with me a bit more regularly, you can follow me on social media on LinkedIn and Blue Sky. Other than that, just like, subscribe, um, do follow the podcast. Tell anybody that you think might enjoy it about it, get them to try it out too. If you've got time, please do leave us a nice review wherever it is that you get your podcasts, because that helps. And other than that, I'll just see you next time. Okay, bye.