SPEAKER_01 0:00

And you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast with Roger Davis. Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is a podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rodri Davis. And before I get into the proper parts of the podcast, I should just apologize if there's any uh background noise at all. I've done my best uh for there not to be, but um peek behind the curtain, we're having a new bathroom put in. Uh and whilst I am in my garden office recording this, uh I can certainly hear quite a lot of noise, including a reasonable amount of hits radio and people smashing tile up uh tiles up. So uh if you can also hear any of that in the background, uh apologies, although I'm hopeful that it won't be picked up. Anyway, on with the podcast. Um so I've got a guest this week, uh, and it is Rasheen Woods, uh, who is the chief executive of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland. Um and as you'll hear on the podcast, Rasheen was also previously the chief executive of Kick It Out, which is English football's uh equality and inclusion uh campaign organization, which many of you might well uh have heard of or be aware of their work. Um so I sat down not that long ago with Rasheen to have a really interesting conversation about the work of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland. And so we talked about how the Community Foundation had come about, what its history was, what its focus was today, how it works, how that kind of fits in alongside other community foundations or compares to them. And we also talked about the kind of broader context for civil society in Northern Ireland and for philanthropy in Northern Ireland. So, um, what's the kind of makeup of organizations in that sector? What does it look like in terms of donors and supporters, how much kind of corporate giving is there, how much high net worth, how much mass market or everyday giving. Um, we also talked a bit about the the government in Northern Ireland, um, Stormont government, which is interesting in being sort of relatively young in national government terms and also um has had a relatively sort of turbulent recent history, with there being periods in which uh they weren't able to form a government in Stormont, so it was being uh governed from Westminster ostensibly, um, and what that had meant for the engagement of civil society with government in Northern Ireland, and whether actually it was a sort of uh odd context in a way, in that lots of civil society organisations in Northern Ireland have actually kind of been around for longer and have more consistent experience than the government perhaps does, and whether what that does to the dynamic between civil society and and government. Um, we also talked about what the attitude of the government was now towards civil society and towards philanthropy. You know, are they kind of positive about it? Do they have an interest in it? Do it are they actively seeking to promote philanthropy, and and if so, how? Um we also talked uh a bit about the kind of social justice focus of uh the community foundation for Northern Ireland, which is sort of really interesting in the context of community foundations more broadly, that they position themselves very much as that, um, and about that balance between uh trying to address the symptoms of issues and trying to get at their underlying causes, and perhaps sort of how you sometimes need to take donors and potential donors on a journey from wanting to focus on those symptoms through to kind of moving further upstream and trying to address some of their cause, their causes, and what that means in terms of the willingness to stray into areas that might be seen as kind of small p political. Um that took us into a really interesting conversation about the whole issue of sort of politicization and polarization, um, given that Northern Ireland obviously is a context in which there have been, you know, over many decades kind of very significant problems with polarization and sectarianism along political and religious grounds. Um, it's really interesting to hear Rashin's thoughts on how civil society had played a role and continues to do so in sort of overcoming some of that and bringing people together across dividing lines and trying to kind of make sure that communities aren't as divided and whether there are lessons in that for some of the sort of wider concerns about polarization that are out there in other places today. Um we then talked about uh the nature and the role of community foundations in general, you know, what is the USP of a community foundation, what particular value does it have, and what role does it play in terms inside that kind of wider ecosystem of a philanthropy in a particular place? Um and also we talked a bit about the potential for kind of uh looking outside of the immediate geographic area and trying to appeal to people's sense of place who might not be there anymore, so the kind of potential for tapping into a diaspora, as it were, a kind of northern Irish diaspora that might be working either in uh kind of the Republic of Ireland or over in England or further afield, and whether they could be a sort of potential source for place-based funding in the future. Anyway, without further ado, uh let's get into the conversation. I hope you really enjoy it. Um, I certainly did, and I will be back at the end for a bit of housekeeping. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Rasheen Wood. Hi there, Rasheen.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Hi, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Um really good, thank you. Um, and as people uh listening will have heard from the intro, you are the Chief Executive of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland. Um, so I'm really interested to kind of find out more about the context for philanthropy and also sort of civil society in Northern Ireland. Um, so maybe a good place to start just for you to tell everybody a bit about what the Community Foundation is, what it does, and how you came to be there in a leadership role.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Okay, so um the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland was set up in 1979. It was originally called the Northern Ireland Trust. So it was originally came uh from the community, it was very much a community-based organization. Um, it transferred into the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland about uh 2002, and actually I worked for it around then, about which seems ironic, about 20 years ago, uh, slightly more. And it was originally set up as a grant giver, which is what we are, obviously. We're slightly unique as a community foundation because we are a grant giver, um, we consider ourselves a good grant giver because we're quite relational and agile and flexible, but we also are unique in the sense that we run some programmes as well, and also so we manage the Peace Impact programme on behalf of the International Fund for Ireland, um, and we manage a programme called Nothing About Us Without Us, which is a programme looking at uh giving a voice to grassroots female leadership. Um and we ran a project programme for the Yoke Foundation um around housing and homelessness. I particularly focus on um women who've been made homeless through domestic violence. So you can see, and and in the last couple of years, uh we've taken on much more of a policy role as well, where we're using our knowledge from our grant making to actually influence uh policy and public affairs. Now, that's sort of my background. As I said, I worked for the foundation under Peace Two funding in Northern Ireland for the reintegration of political ex-prisoners as part of the peace process. Um I met my husband who's English and I moved to England. Um, and then uh for the last for a number of years, for about 14 years, I worked in English football, four years as the head of equality for the football foundation, um, and then 10 years as the CEO of Kick It Out, which is football's anti-discrimination campaign. And then the job came back up again as the CEO. So I've done a complete circle back home to Northern Ireland, which is what I wanted to do anyway, uh, but back to the foundation after being away for 17, 18 years. So it's it seems really it's a really cool thing to be able to come back in this role because I loved the foundation. I loved it when I worked there, was always massively proud of it. Uh so to come back and have the absolute honour and privilege of being the CEO was really a good thing to be able to do.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yeah, that's absolutely great. And there's there's loads I want to pick up on there about the particular way in which uh Community Foundation for Northern Ireland works and sort of how that relates to other community foundations and the sort of unique role that that they can play as organizations. I guess first um it'd be really interesting to hear a bit more about what the sort of general backdrop for civil society and philanthropy is in in Northern Ireland. I mean, I guess a lot of people listening will their their awareness of of Northern Ireland will be fairly limited to they know about the history of the troubles, and as a result, they'll kind of know about histories of sort of political and religious division, but they won't necessarily know much more. So maybe you could kind of paint a picture about what civil society looks like, what some of the key issues are, what the kind of makeup of organizations is over there.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Yeah. I mean, as you you mentioned it, and I suppose we are in many ways shaped by the troubles and by by the civil and the civil uh war here. You know, it went on a long time, and and and the the trauma from that remains and impacts both on daily life and and how we develop as an as a country. You know, we we still there's a lot of uh mental health issues in Northern Ireland that still remains clean. There's a lot of legacy issues in Northern Ireland, and so we we're quite a unique area with quite a nuanced uh media and voluntary sector that's grown up around that. The issues here are significant, as they as they are in the most of the UK, to be fair, but they are significant here, particularly, you know. I lived in London for 20 years. Um, the NHS in London, compared to the NHS here, the waiting lists are significantly different. They're significantly longer here. We have issues around climate here, and we're probably a rural area. Uh, you'll see probably some of the issues around Lochney and what's happening to the poor water quality there. But and there are also significant issues around the peace dividend and people who feel the peace dividend didn't reach their communities. On the back of we had racial rights last year, as other parts of the UK did have as well. And we we we the Community Foundation organised a conference in January looking at some of those issues, and we're not you know the unique North Arch unique in that way, but it was unique in the sense it was during the troubles, predominantly white organ country, and that's changing now. But and I, as an equality organisation or of campaigner, would say that's a great thing uh for Northern Ireland. Um not sure everybody shares my views on that here. So we're having the issues to deal with immigration and changes in community demographics that that the rest of England and Scotland Wales have been dealing with for a much longer period of time than us. So for us, and we have we have a very vibrant uh community involuntary social enterprise organise um sector with probably over about 7,000 organisations. But with the cuts that's cut sent as happened to government, and particularly Northern Ireland, you know, as you know, you've know most people know Stormwood has been in, out, in, out. We're in at the moment, we hope that stains. But because that that gives a a country within a government that hasn't had a long period of stabilization and a long period of growth and a long period to just go through the the dynamics and the experience of running a country every day for years on end. We just don't have that yet. We've had significant cuts. Um, we're the biggest independent funder in Northern Ireland, the lottery are the biggest funders. The cuts to core services of voluntary community organization are absolutely killing people here. They really, really are. I I was spoken to one of my trustees yesterday who's been in this sector for 30 years, and he said, in my 30-year experience rushing, it's never been this bad. Northern Ireland had the unique position too of receiving significant peace money from European. And I said, when I worked there, it was under piece two. That went from piece three to piece four to five, and then piece plus now. So this is the last bit of money, European money coming to Northern Ireland. So it's a slightly false economy here because I think when that goes, that's going to be significant because that's significant money into Northern Ireland. So my concerns as as as leading the biggest independent funder is is how do we bring well, my concerns are numbers, things. How do we change philanthropy and what that means, which is this big word that people go, what does that mean? Into saying it's just giving. You know, how do we how do we ensure that people know because people in Northern Ireland are extremely generous. You know, if you look at the, I'm sure you know this better than me, Roderick, if you look at the local uh CAF report, the last one, in the top 10 given areas, Northern Ireland feature in three of them. Number one, we come number one, which is different for us. Um so they're very generous. You know, people in West Belfast get more than people in West Kensington. So we're very generous, but we still don't really totally understand giving in the sense of what it means to give and how easy it can be to give and how we get that message out to others. So we're I always say this we're slightly in a perfect storm, where the demand on the services for the voluntary community sector are at an all-time high, but the money coming into the sector is at an all-time low. And so we're in the middle of a perfect storm. And we have to all recognise that and understand what is it that we're going to do about that.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, and it feels very similar, I think, to the context in lots of other places, or maybe more acute, as you say, because if that reliance on government or European funding has been greater, then when that money's no longer available, that suddenly the the question about what to do instead is is very difficult to answer. And and I know it places an enormous amount of uh sort of strain then on philanthropy and giving, because suddenly that becomes the only source of potential income. Um you mentioned there that actually in terms of fundamental generosity, Northern Ireland and communities within it show up very well. Maybe in terms of the overall levels there, we're talking about less because, as you say, West Belfast compared to West Kensington, I'm assuming you know the actual average uh income is is much lower. So even if people are giving a higher proportion of that income, the the overall amounts are lower. Is most of the giving that is currently there in in Northern Ireland what you would think of as kind of everyday or mass market giving, or is is there any sort of philanthropy in the sense of people giving larger amounts? I know that's not necessarily the only or best way to define philanthropy, but assume for a minute that that we're just talking about major donor giving or however you want to term it. I'm just really interested in whether there is any of that there or whether that's well there is.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

There definitely is. There is. I mean, w we manage 68, 69 funds on behalf of corporates, um, other foundations and a high net worth individuals, private philanthropic giving. I think Irish philanthropy is a much different than American philanthropy in the sense that most of it comes from entrepreneurial activity, people who've had businesses sold it. So a lot of our the people that we work as private philanthropists are people who've sold their businesses. And you know, so they're looking, so but they're very we find that philanthropists in Northern Ireland, the ones that we deal with, a lot of them are quite quiet. Some are obviously want their name out there, and and that's absolutely fine, but a lot don't. A lot of them are very interested in in the impact of what they do, not in the recognition, but they are very interested in the impact of what they do. And what we try to say to them all the time is we want to make giving for you easy. We want to do all the work that a foundation of funders, all the due diligence, all the impact reporting, so that we connect the donors to the impact quicker and faster and more efficiently. Because what happens is I think I think particularly uh people want to give, but it's sort of like, where do I give? How do I give? You know, people will come to us and say, Look, I thought about setting up a foundation, but I didn't realise that there's quite a lot of legal stuff around that, and there's quite a lot of due diligence. And I don't really want that. I really want just to give. I want to see the impact of my giving, and I want to be able to know, you know, so we are very much about and how we look after our donors is very much centred around that. So there is some, there's not the access to um the wealth that there would be in the south of Ireland, that they're they have a much more access to greater, and I'd say the same with the UK, with with the mainland, with England and Wales, Scotland. But there is a grow in that. Um, you know, there is certainly a sense of um with the number of our donors that we work with and and continue to work with and access now. Um I think still people give, still people give a lot around their religion. Uh you know, the churches here are very good at fundraising for specific particular and dealing with issues in their parishes or in around them. Um there's still like some significant charities, then the bigger charities that have got quite sophisticated fundraising. But but you're back to this here that the majority of the voluntary community sector in Northern Ireland are small, voluntary or volunteer-led organisations where the fundraiser is also the caretaker, is also the deliverer, is also the IT guy, you know. And I knew this even when I worked in Kick It Out, people say, Can I talk to your IT department? I was made, that would be me. The goal, can I talk to your fundraising department? I mean, that would still be me. And I was the CEO, do you know what I mean? Because there was only when I started in Kick It Out, there was only five of our staff. So I'm saying is everybody, you know. So, you know, we're interested, I suppose, as an organization, in how do we support that um a number of our funds are or how do we support the diversification of incomes income funds? Because 70% of the sector was funded by local government. That's a level of funding which is different than other parts of the UK. So you see, there's mass reliance on government contracts or government funding, that's going to decrease. There's no shadow of a doubt about that. We all know that. So, how do we fill the gap? How are we going to, and how are we going to make it easy for not just us, but for others to access philanthropists? And how does that mean? And how because most philanthropists we find um start a journey with us here. They tend to fund either thematically or geographically. They've grown up in, I live in a weak place called Donegade. They've grown up in Donegade, so they want to fund in Donegade. And that's what that's what place-based funding. Or they've been touched by cancer, so they want to fund a cancer group, right? And that's that's not unusual in the rest of the UK. But I suppose for us, as we try to bring them on a journey with us that goes because fundamentally we're a social justice organization, so we we do a lot around human rights and about that. And when you say to funder, would you like to fund some human rights stuff? They tend to go, uh, no, I just want to fund the weak group over there. But if you keep them with you and if they trust you, and if you bring them on the journey, you can see how they change their thinking about things that they're and they're saying, Well, actually, that actually really interests me. It might have been scary in the past, but it interests me now. And you can bring them on the journey around to there. And I think for us, particularly in this era, not just in in Northern Ireland UK, but overall, I think social justice is critical. At the moment, the erosion of social justice and the erosion of human rights is phenomenal. And we have to, as a foundation, stand up for that. And we have to, as a foundation, take risks about that. And when people ask me to describe what we are, I nearly always say we're a social justice organization because that's what we were set up for. That's what our history is. In that, the history of Northern Ireland is around that. Uh we have we minister the human uh human rights fund and a social justice fund. But everything that we do is around that, and it has to be, and we have to be brave and take risks and not be scared by saying, you know, we have to turn down money if those donors don't adhere to what we think is the social justice agenda.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

That's that's so in yeah, so interesting. There's loads I want to ask you about that. I think particularly on that point you're saying there at the end about bravery and you're saying you have to turn down money. It's really interesting because obviously that that, particularly in an environment where resources are scarce and everybody is you know competing for them and need needs to get money in through the door, the pragmatics of that often mean it's difficult to make those choices. Um so have you found there are actually sort of situations in which you've had to have those conversations with potential funders and say, well, actually, you know, whilst the money would be nice, it's more important that we stick to principles.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Absolutely. We've turned down uh significant money, and take it for me as a CEO that's really difficult to do, like you know what I mean. But we've had to do it because we consider ourselves um uh an open and trust bus-based funder, a very flexible and agile funder. That's our whole funding strategy is built around that. If you come to us and say, and people have come to and said, Yeah, but we want you to give it out this way, we go, but and we try really hard to influence and say, but that's not how we give it out, and that's not we can't give it out that way. They said, no, but we we and we need to sign off on that. Or, you know, we've had government departments say, well, like the ministry needs to sign up. And we're like, well, no, we can't have that. We can't have that's that's way too political, and it's not for us. So you have to turn that down because you can't turn up and turn up and say, look, we we're we're we're advocating that all funders are flexible and agile and and responsive and relational, not transactional, apart from this bit. You can't really do that with any integrity. You sort of go, you're either all in or you're not. You know what I mean? So we as a bo at like my board are probably the best board I've ever worked for. They are they understand that and their concept is but it's also about being able to take risk. Because as an independent foundation, we should be able to take risk. We should be able to risk fund organizations that are doing absolutely critical, but but maybe not absolutely v risky work or on the work that's on the edge, or work that's not been we're not totally sure what we're doing, but we know there's a need and we know we need to address it. If not us, then who? That's what the role of us should be. We have to be able to go, look, we want to take that, we we're gonna take that risk. And with with risk will come failure, undoubtedly so. And you have to have a board that goes, that's okay to fail. So when we take money, when we take money of anybody, like any, like any funder uh foundation, we do our due diligence, but we have made decisions to turn money down more based on the fact that they want that the people who give us wanted to give us out a certain way, and we won't do it that way. And that's mainly why we've turned it down, because we just said that we can't, we can't, we just can't do that because it's not who we are as an organization. And power dynamics of a funder and people that you you you support and invest in is always you've always got to check yourself about that to say it's not our job to tell people what they need. It's our job to listen to what they need, and our job is to go get them the money to do what they need, it's not our job. And I sometimes think sometimes funders don't do that. We we try really hard to make sure that everything we do is led by the community we serve, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

You mentioned you said something really interesting there in the qu in the course of the, you know, you're you're saying it's necessary for an organization like you to be willing to take those risks, and one of those risks is that you're seen as straying into areas that are, you know, small p political or kind of quote, you know, quote unquote, political. D do you think that is something that's just a kind of natural part of trying to fund further upstream and address things at a kind of underlying level? Or do you think there are any particular challenges around that in Northern Ireland where there are some issues that are particularly difficult to get into without sort of being accused of straying into politics?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Well, I mean, I think I think most philanthropy is political anyway, to be honest, because it just is. You're either on the left or the right and you're trying to do change things you think the government's not going to do, to be honest. You know, but I think for us, I think most things, you know, if you're a social justice organization, you are going to be involved in in politics with small pay at some stage anyway, whether that's around LGBQI rights or whether it's around, you know, trying to like we we we we fund um we co-fund at least uh six human rights organizations. So, you know, you couldn't be co-fronting them just to take, like, say, public interest litigation services, we fund co-front and say we do we're not we're not supporting the work they're trying to do. So we may be seen, we're not politically aligned to anybody, no, could nor would we ever be, but we are being involved in the political life of Northern Ireland. Of course we are. We're we're going to say, you know, and if you think about no, so so one of the things we're we're doing a lot of work on is around digital poverty, digital exclusion. You know, you can look at digital justice or digital digital rights, you know, anything to do around poverty is always going to be politics with a small P because you're trying to change you, you you want to try and change the world. Like, I mean, I know that sounds really like, you know, my God, who's your, you know, what are you trying to do? But you that's what you're trying to do. You're you're trying to work with others to go, how can we make this part, this country that we come from, a better place? And what does that mean for us? And it means addressing things like climate and and about poverty, and you know, it means, you know, you just listen to see the children saying today, you know, we're not not you're not doing enough, and and neither we are, you know, you talk in 2025 and poverty, you're thinking, can we be talking about poverty? You know what I mean? How can we be doing that? So we we will try to. It's difficult, I think, sometimes here, because we, you know, you don't want to get into the politics of here, but yeah, but we manage the peace impact program, and that will involve us being involved with communities who don't feel that they've transitioned into the peace, they don't feel the peace dividends impacted them. So you're doing high-risk work, but but that's needed if because it's not about getting the peace, it's about maintaining the peace. And I always say, you know, people talk here about the two communities, and I keep on saying there's more than two communities here. And that's the other thing, because what you don't want to replace is sectarianism with racism or Islamophobia or xenophobia, and I'm you know, my my background isn't in in inclusion and equality and campaigning around that. And it's you would be naive not to think that a rise of the far right in the whole of Europe and the UK and we're not immune to that. How do we address that? How do we make sure that people from a land of immigration, because all we ever did was immigrate in other places? You know, how do we make sure that we're welcoming the people coming here that are going to make this society and this country, in my opinion, a better place to live and a better place to be?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah, absolutely. I'd really like to talk a bit more in a moment about some of that particular experience in Northern Ireland with trying to kind of overcome issues of a you know polarised communities and what the lessons there are, I think, for other places that are that are you know finding very much the same issues at the moment. I just before I do, uh something you said earlier I thought was really interesting. And you mentioned about the political context there and the fact that you know the Stormont government is only relatively you know young in in terms of of governments and actually you know has had a relatively sort of up and down time uh in terms of you know being there and then not necessarily uh kind of quite being there. And I I wondered actually in terms of that question of the role that civil society and a funder like you plays in some of those areas that that kind of touch on politics, does that actually mean that the relationship between government and the charity sector is a bit different to other places in that often you know maybe the the charity sector and the organizations in it have been doing the stuff for longer and have been around for a lot longer than government? So they're actually, you know, is there a kind of they're slightly more senior when it comes to some issues than the government, which is junior, which you know, in lots of other places I think the um the charity sector feels as though it has to approach government uh very much as a junior partner. Um I just wondered whether there's any of that dynamic there because the government is slightly a later introduction to the scene in a way.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

I think that dynamics everywhere, to be fair. I don't think we're I think sometimes that parent-child relationship is sort of I find quite challenging to be fair. Um because I think in the voluntary community sector here, the amount of experience and knowledge is phenomenal. And I have a real bug bear about, you know, and I I know people don't always go in saying this is the third sector. I'm like, please don't call us the third sector because we're not that that predisposes that we come third, and I don't I don't think we do come third. And I think uh my uh the one of the guys I work with David always said it's like the three-legged stool between public, private, and voluntary. You take it the voluntary sector away, the stool falls over. And I love that analogy, so I want to keep my head. Um, I think for us, there is certainly been, and I would challenge the government here about sometimes seeing the sector as, you know, oh it's a nice to have, or it's oh, it's does it doesn't it do great work over there? And I think saying, No, we don't. We deliver critical services, we do critical. And then when people say to me about sustainability, I went, but you don't go and ask, is the school sustainable? You go, the school delivers critical services and you pay for that critical services. Well, we deliver critical services and you should pay for that as well. And then comes down that whole terms and conditions, you know, well, it's okay, you must work for the sector because you're so passionate, and that'll pay your bills and it'll pay your mortgage. And well, no, you've got to pay people a decent salary with decent terms and conditions to recruit and retain their staff. And yet we government contracts sometimes are very short term, not long enough term for people to build, uh, to say, well, look, you can come work for me for a year, or you can go get a job over there for three years, it's maybe 10 grand more. You're gonna take that one. So for me, I think there's this very much like, you know, you you we have to, and that's why I think for us in as a funder and a and a member of this of the sector, and somebody who knows it for a long time, it's part of our job to be an advocate for the voluntary community sector in Northern Ireland, and it's part of our job to challenge both local government and central government to say, no, hold on a wee second here. That's you you think you know what the answers are, but you don't. But I know people who do know what the answers are, and it's not us, by the way, we're just the conduit, it's the voluntary community sector will tell you very, very clearly, with a lot of experience, about what is needed for the communities of Northern Ireland to flourish. They will tell you, and you can I could put a room of 20 people to who would give you all the answers for a long time what that's needed there, and that's because it's been from hard-won experience and knowledge. So I'm constantly saying, you know, stop thinking what they need and ask people what they want, and then find a way to do that. Our chair, Adrian Johnson, talks about um he's the new uh commissioner for innovation for Belfast. He keeps on talking about inclusive growth, inclusive innovation. You can't just innovate two people, you have to ask, you have to bring the citizens on board, and the citizens are what make up the volunteer community sector. Now, in the past, Northern Ireland has been very good at that, in fact, very pretty poor. Part of the Good Friday Agreement was that a civic forum would be set up. It only lasted a couple of years and it folded due to lots of different reasons. Now, there's a civic initiative now, and I was involved at the very beginning as chair for a while, but there needs to be more of that. In the south, they have civic assemblies which are really working and really actually bringing citizens together to actually influence in government. We we haven't had that in the north, and and we need to do more of that for actually citizens to influence government about what's going on in their in it, you know. So it's it's it's fairly young, I'd say, Rodri, to be honest, and but it it needs more of that, and people need to feel not done onto. Well, there's no point in me saying because it's just going to be done anyway. If you say we need to empower our citizens to actually say, Well, look, I I want my voice to be heard. And I think the the programme We Run Nothing About Us Without Us is about that. It's about giving grassroots women because it's often women are the centre of these communities, giving them a voice about what matters to them. And part of that was that they they they came again and said, Look, we want a health strategy, and and the government hit for women, and they said, Well, we don't need that. Actually, you do. We're the only part of the UK that doesn't have a health strategy for women, and so that's that that piece of work has been phenomenal and grows from strength to strength because if you give people a voice and you listen to them and you think you have an impact, that will grow, and that's part of our role as a as a social justice, not just a grant maker, you know.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

And I think that role of of providing a conduit for the the actual voice of you know citizens or particular communities is a really I mean really important part of what civil society can do. I'm interested in in the sort of more traditional sense of civil society organisations doing advocacy work on behalf of those communities that they serve. You know, you've said there that um sometimes that does involve being kind of challenging towards government um or kind of pointing out, you know, when they're they're not doing things in the right way or when they're they're kind of going in the wrong direction. Is the Northern Irish government you know, is it welcoming to that? Because I know I one thing I've noted certainly in in the UK and other places over the course of my career is there's often a big gap between the warm words of politicians about that role of civil society in theory. So, you know, they'll go and open a statue of the suffragettes and say how wonderful it is that they were willing to kind of challenge the status quo. But then when they themselves as politicians get challenged, they're not they're not so comfortable about it. And so it's sort of wondered whether it actually works well in practical terms over there.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

I think it's like everything, it it depends, it depends. I I think, yes, you'll you'll always get people who you'll always get, I think like most politicians, you'll always get the ones who go, you know, absolutely uh, they'll tell you one thing and then you'll say you'll get the other ones who get it, who absolutely get it, and who will step that extra mile to go, you know. I'm thinking of, you know, we we give out just after COVID 30 million beha on behalf of the Department of Health. But and that really came through the Minister Robin Swan, who's still an MP now in Westminster. And that came from him standing up and saying, no, we're not putting that money back, but we're going to keep that money for Northern Ireland, but we need to find a way to give it out better. We're going to ask the community foundation to give it out better, and and we did. And that was working very closely with both the Department of Health, the civil servants there, and the minister there to say, look, we can give this money out really well, and it'll have a massive effect. It's 30 million pounds for cancer, mental health, and cares will have a massive impact. That has been one of the biggest success problems we've ever had. And we don't normally take government money because we they won't let us give it out the way we want to give it out. But this was an exception, and that was down to, I think, Robinson and the civil servants around him thinking differently. And you have to think differently. And people say me, well, you can't do it, oh, you can't do it that way. Well, actually, that's a prime example that you can do it. That's good for the department, good for the audit office with public money, but most importantly, brilliant for the community and voluntary sector and for the communities they serve. And that was about preventative stuff. That a lot of that canceled stuff was stuff that they can't normally do in their day-to-day stuff, not this money, preventative stuff. So now you have 30 million pounds coming out of that sector, no money, there's no more money going into it. So all of that work you're thinking is just going around to go through to the NHS or to other services, and you're thinking, but you have an NHS on its knees. How are you gonna how is that gonna work? So it's frustrating to not think about how we can. So we don't have a philanthropy strategy for Northern Ireland, and we are the biggest supporters of we should have a philanthropy strategy for Northern Ireland, we should have departments working together to go, this is what philanthropy can bring, this is what giving can give. And it's not about saying, Well, look, we don't have to pay for those services anymore. It's not about that. It's about saying is this is a different way to fund a sector that can be very, very innovative, very agile, and very creative because they've had to be, they've had to make £20 last longer because they don't know when they get the next £20 than somewhere else. So I think for me it's about trying to um work with politicians and with senior civil servants to go, and you do, you meet some of the best people, you know, who get it, and you go, there's a different way to work here, there's a different way to do things. And if we don't start waking up and thinking what that is, we're just going to have the same conversation now that we're going to have in 10 years' time. And it's frustrating for a place that that's a sector that in Northern Ireland is very innovative, very creative, very like stalwarts, you know, like basically get. I don't, you know, sometimes I mean my team that worked for me, probably the most passionate people that I've ever worked for and with, as same as my board, and they're there because they want to make a difference. But you've got to give them money to live, they've got to pay a mortgage, they've got to, you know, you've got to, you can't just go, can you just keep doing that because you're passionate about it? You've got to say, and I'm gonna make this seem as a career. This is we're gonna pay you what you're entitled to and what you do because we value what you do. We value everything you do, so we think that this is what we should do. And I think that's frustrating for people because it's we're losing people, and I know and talk to people all the time in the sector, we're losing people, we're finding it difficult to recruit routine, and I think this is the same everywhere. I don't think Northland's particularly unique here, but until we start actually putting our money where our mouth is and saying we actually do value, we're not going to keep them.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

And in terms of what you said there about the idea of government taking a more strategic approach overall to philanthropy and sort of understanding it, not just in individual instances, but the role it can play kind of across the board. It feels like something that that I you know heard in lots of other contexts. I know in the Republic of Ireland they have moved forward a little way on on actually kind of achieving that and and you know, looking at that from uh over in in England, it's sort of interesting because we're still kind of calling for it. Um has there been any sort of movement on that in Ireland, or is it still something uh in Northern Ireland, or is it something that you're still kind of trying to push the idea of, or has there been you know receptiveness towards it?

SPEAKER_02 37:19

I think there's interest in it now. I mean we're we we we um my John Dharty, my director of public version policy, is part of the COM group in the South, you know, so we and we work very closely with Community Foundation Ireland, so we knew about it and we and we we're a big advocate of it well. It was brilliant. You know, there's a lot of work went into a lot of people involved, and so we know it and we know the model well, and we we constantly are asking for it. I think there's more reception than there was, but I still don't think there's still the the um I don't think there's a total understanding of what it can bring. I think you know, every so often we'll go up and we'll we'll brief ministers or uh civil servants about it and what it what what actually it would mean for Northern Ireland. I think I don't think still there's nobody's taking a particular lead on it, and I think you need someone in government to take a lead on it for it to be start to actually take them down. You know, we we and and many of our colleagues, other funders uh within Northern Ireland are all calling forward and saying, like, you know, this would make our work much easier, we it would be it's much more strategic, you know, that it means that we can, you know, start actually pushing Northern Ireland and talking about it and thinking about what the tax implications are and things that get there. We should make it easier for us, you know. But I still don't think rather it is where it needs to be by a long shot. And and I think you know, we would be such an advocate of trying really hard with colleagues to try and say like this is what's critical for us as we need, because we know the sector will not survive without more money coming into it, and that's not government money.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to come back to that the question we touched on a couple of times around sort of polarisation and and division, because obviously this is you know a big part of conversation in lots of places. I mean, it's a huge issue in the US, but also in the UK and and and elsewhere. So there's a lot of concern about you know society being divided and kind of how we potentially overcome that. And I just really interested because obviously Northern Ireland is somewhere that has had you know very real experience or very deep political and sort of religious and sectarian division over a long period of time. And as you said, you actually, you know, even though uh politically that has been to some extent solved, you're still dealing with the after effects of it in many different ways. I wondered if you had any sort of thoughts on what you'd particularly learned, you know, either as a funder or kind of within civil society more broadly in Northern Ireland, about how you can go about trying to overcome division, you know, what role can civil society play in the hard work of bringing people together across divides?

SPEAKER_02 39:45

There is no silver bullet. I can tell you, I haven't worked in that in this field for a long time. There's no silver bullet, there's no one thing that'll do it. If there was, I would have found it and marketed and retired somewhere like to know because it would have been brilliant, you know what I mean? I think with any sort of thing like that, for me, for certain people, I think the future is so scary that they look back, not forward, and they go, Well, look, that never used to be like this, it used to be like that. And even that's just an idea, it's not reality, it's just the idea how it used to be like. I think for us in Northern Ireland, we are definitely seeing I've seen here things that I just only see in England for the first time. And actually, you know, I I see it quite a lot, you know, and the the riots didn't surprise me. So they didn't. And I think for us there has to be there's a number of things. I think we have to fund more organizations and build the capacity of more organisations that are supporting immigrants, asylum seekers, uh, the BME community here in Northern Ireland, because I don't think I think they're not funded to the right level. They don't have the still capacity, the ability to grow the way they do. And we're talking to a number of them. And I think that's what the conference in in January for us was very much about was to bring together all these voices for the first time and give them a voice, actually say, This is what we need, this is what our community needs, these are what our communities need. I think there is more, there's also work to be done with look, and I learned this in Kick It Out. There's no point in standing on the sidelines saying, You're bad, you're bad, you're bad, you're bad, because it doesn't change anything. You have to understand why you try to understand why people feel the way that they feel, why they do with the things they do, why they fear the things that they fear, and then try to build a bridge over and to try to work out how you can change that and what you can do. Because for me, I think there's some people who will never get it. There are some people who will always get it, and then there's a large majority who go, and maybe I'm an optimist, people say all the time, that that that I think want to do the right thing, but they're frightened for whatever reason, or they don't understand things for whatever reason. And that doesn't in any way negate bad behaviour or or or any sort of type of discrimination. But what it is is the ability by trying to educate people uh from a young age to whatever to try and say, you know, to work out what it is that they're afraid of and what it is, how they see difference and what what they what they understand about inclusion and equity and what that means for them. I think Northern Ireland hasn't really done it because it never really had to do it. You know, we were a white community for a long, long time. Now that's changing, as I said at the very beginning, and I'm really pleased about that. But with that with that will bring its own issues, both for the communities here and for the communities that are coming here. So you need to do, there needs to be lots of different things done in regard to that, you know, and poverty in whatever shape matter, which you know this better than me, has that impact on people in different ways. You know, people don't feel there is a future through whatever it is, then you start to think about well, who's to blame for that? How can I blame for that? And well, because it must be somebody to blame for that. Like, you know, it's either government or it's those people who don't look inside like me, it must be them who do it. Like, do you know what I mean? And I think that's that's where it becomes dangerous. And then the organization of that is when it becomes really dangerous, is whenever they start to organise because then you get the misinformation, disinformation that is rife at the moment by saying, I'm constantly spending my life saying, and even when I was chaotic saying, actually, that's factually incorrect what you're saying. Do you know what I mean? But never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Do you know what I mean? Well, they're coming here to get that. You're thinking that's actually wrong. That's actually wrong. And there is no real, you know, we we we did a lot of work with uh refugees and asylum seekers, and I'm doing a lot of work now with the Henry Smith Foundation about homelessness, that's the people coming out of the asylum system, you know what I mean? And that's what we have to do. You have to give people a future to think whatever if you hear coming here to think about, because then you have a better chance of integration.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that issue you were around and you say about misinformation and disinformation around some of these issues and the role that civil society organizations need to play in trying to combat some of that is is so huge. And I think really, you know, we're grappling with what the best way of doing that is. Because as you say, it's you know, it it's counterproductive often just to come out and tell people that they're wrong and actually, you know, even if you do it in a non combative way and just provide people with facts and statistics, it doesn't always work. Um so you have to find ways of actually sort of doing it in in a way that kind of brings people makes it real for people. Uh and often I I mean and interesting in talking to people in the US who've sort of said actually in their experience when it comes to trying to address polarization and division, it it only really ever works at a local level because if you launch in at the national level and try and do it, it's all too theoretical and it's easy for people to to kind of just exist in their own world of facts. Whereas when people actually come together with other people within their local area who maybe have different views for them, they're sort of forced to to work alongside them and to engage with them. I mean I'm as a place-based funder, I'm sure that's that's something that you find. Do you find that actually in that kind of hyper-local work that you do, you see the sign, you know, encouraging signs that you can get people to come together across divisions.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

Yeah, I mean the role of any uh I think of any foundation or or funder is also as a convener. You know, you can bring people together in a way that sometimes others can't, you know, to say, you know, we're bringing people together and we try to do a lot of this here. And I think, you know, as I said but the the the the conference was a prime example of bringing people together and and we try to do quite a lot because we can convene people and we should convene people. And it's given people the ability to have a safe space to ask sometimes challenging questions or ask questions that well you don't automatically receive a label if you don't know the answer to them. Like you know what I mean. And I think that's because if not if you only bring people and I I think this and kick it out if you only bring people that are anti-race together then you're only speaking to anti-racist people. So you go you're not anti rac you think racism is bad you think racism is bad you think and everybody nods along at you and you're not changing anything you're not you're not changing the world you're you're just talking to yourself in a in a different way and so you have to try to reach out and and try through different things and there is no silver bullet as I said it's about education it's about integration it's about knowing people about putting a human face to what you consider is is a type whatever that means you know what I mean but saying you know and but but also it is about and and I'm very clear with this to you is it's where when the behavior becomes absolutely unacceptable there is has to be sanctions whatever they may be you can't let them go well that's just someone said to me once well it was just a little bit racist and I was like hey what's a little bit racist like what's a little bit racist you know what I mean and and it's also by calling it what it is you know it's not don't let's call it civil unwrestling if it's racist or Islamophobic or xenophobic then call it what it is. Do not try to hide behind something else. It's just it's a little it's not it's not quite that because people are uncomfortable with those terms. You have to make sure you know so I am a big advocate of trying to do stuff that's proactive and educational but I'm also just equally enacted calling things what they are and addressing things for what they are and where the sanctions are required then they should be enacted but where it is about trying to talk to people who maybe don't sound look like you and do not have and we have experienced that in Northern Ireland of doing quite a lot of cross what we would consider cross community work of talking to people who who who are not from our religious background and we need to take that learning of which we are quite significant and address it in regards to not just the two communities and also to look at within those two communities what are the issues that make people think well I need a target or I need something to blame so and it's got to be that person. You know what I mean so and it's also and and I say this even in my own team all the time it's about addressing your own prejudice and always being aware then you know when people say to me I don't have any I'm not prejudiced you're like nearly guarantee you are because we all are we just all are about something. It may not be about race it may be about something else. We just all are like you know and then there's a certain you need to be able the building to check yourself when you say actually that's actually just my prejudice coming up there and I saw it is you know I'm aware we're in danger of going too long so I've just got two more questions I wanted to ask.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

One one is we've touched on quite a few aspects of this already but I just wanted to come back to the particular question of you know what is the unique value of a community foundation? I guess based on your experience I mean obviously each one is unique to its local area and they all look quite different but but also at the same time they're all positioned as part of this bigger movement of community foundations. So what for you is the kind of key thing that within the wider ecosystem of philanthropy makes community foundations something essential?

SPEAKER_02 48:09

It's that place-based knowledge it's just the knowledge that you have you know you've been around since 46 years you in a place of Northern Ireland which is equivalent to the size of Yorkshire you know you know you know what the issues are you know what's worked and what's not worked you know who you can trust you know who you know who may look good but are actually not delivering impact because if we cannot and for me the Community Foundation the the unique selling point for every community foundation is the fact that they're place based they have local significant knowledge that you can't get from anywhere else they know that they know their market extremely extremely well they should be really approachable and flexible funders because they know it very well. The ability to collaborate with other funders to maximise the impact but what we have to be able to do which I'm not totally sure that any of us are fantastic in is been able to articulate the impact of what we do. Because until we are able to articulate the impact of what we do we cannot make sure that others take us really seriously and not just see us as that's a nice thing over there. Because we are intrinsic to the development of any social cohesion of any or any communities going forward. That's what we should be doing. We should be the center of most what things we're doing because we're based in the community we know it and also we're bringing money in and I keep on thinking if all the foundations put their heads together they'll never do this because it's too political came together and said we're gonna we're gonna campaign on one thing one thing only imagine what that would look like. Imagine if you had the whole not just UK not just community foundations but all independent foundations saying we're gonna come together and we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna look at really putting resources and policy and campaigning around this one issue. I think that just blows my mind because I just think then that's a different story altogether. And that's why I understand that foundations by nature don't particularly sometimes want to be political in the sense of they don't want to but if not us then who? Why would we not be political why would we not say it's our experience in funding the sector around homelessness that these are the main issues around homelessness that our the people who we fund the 50 organizations we fund are saying if you were to solve two things it'd be these two things. And if they can't say it or they don't have their voices heard and surely it's our voice. It's not us saying it we're amplifying their voices but we're putting our thing behind the scene this is what you need to think about. That's what I think a unique selling point for a foundation is because not they're not the expert in everything, but they have the links and the people who are so what we should be doing as a place-based funder is saying we we amplify the voice of this sector because we funded and we funded it for this number of years and we know the impact of what they're doing and therefore we as an organization can share that impact more.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

Absolutely and then I my final question I think lead leads on for that you you sort of mentioned there the the bit about the role of the foundation in terms of bringing in funding and obviously as a placepace funder your USP is that you've got that and really deep knowledge of the local area. I think sometimes with placepace funding there's a kind of assumption that the the money itself also has to come from from the local area and obviously a lot of it does but it doesn't have to because there will be people elsewhere who also care about Northern Ireland and would love to fund it. So I wondered whether you'd had any experience of sort of successfully engaging with a kind of diaspora of Northern Irish donors or if it was something you're interested in trying to develop more. Because I know in other areas there's been this interest in in sort of diaspora giving within the UK and beyond.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

Yeah I mean look I I um spend a lot of my time talking about Northern Ireland to not people not from here um but also from here but I think for me sometimes you know look we've been very lucky but it's hard draft about going over and talking to some of the big UK foundations and saying okay don't say UK foundation if you don't fund the Northern Ireland or if you fund this much very tiny amount Northern Ireland and we've been very successful you know with Secret Rising and Porticus and the Baring Foundation and Henry now Henry Smith and the Oak Foundation many many more and Garfield West and I can I there's loads that we can think about but we are yes we definitely we are more interested in also the diaspora that have left Northern Ireland um because that's what we did in Ireland we went to lots of different places and and and set up a and made a good life for ourselves there. You know and I'm thinking about one of our donors actually is is is English um and randomly came to me out of the blue and but his connection Northern Ireland is his that his grandfather developed the ejector seat which is unusual and brilliant I think and he's from Northern Ireland and he says look he says I always have a connection northern I says and I want my son and he came over with his two boys now to visit us and said I want my boys to know this is where our family come from as well and I think that's what we have to do particularly in this in this global world that we're moving in that people do move. I think we have to try and and that's the reason why recently we did our launch in London because we wanted people to say you know London's you know England's the nearest place where most there was such a significant Irish diaspora you know as well as the US there's there's definitely challenges in fundraising in the US and I think there'll be more challenges than that there. But we but we are keen that and I think people's you're right probably still have an interest in Northern Ireland but I think it's our job as foundations to actually look where people from our areas have come from look at promoting us as as still as a foundation that that that is tackling what we're tackling but also we need to work together and we're part of the obviously the UK Community Foundation network is how does that network work collectively together to say this is a UK network of community foundations you know how do we bring money in that's distributed through that network that we can do things in all our areas about a common issue or common issues and I think that we have to do more I think we have to think about how we collaborate as funders. And collaboration I find is probably my biggest struggle because people talk a good game I think about collaboration and people talk about it a lot and then you say well do you want to collaborate and they go no no well no no you know so that we're very lucky and somebody as as as forward thinking as the Henry Smith Foundation and Oak and the ones that I've mentioned going yeah look let's collaborate or comic relief is a part we're we're an intermediary funding body and the role of an intermediary funding body I think is critical is because they bring just more than we just give out the money locally they they bring much more than that and they they should if they're good influence bigger foundations to say well actually maybe we could do things differently and so there that's the that's the taking away of ego to say you know I the my biggest things I go by is try to be be kind, be brave and be sorry be kind, be brave I can't even forgot the now because it's gone out of my head now be kind, be brave and be curious. And that's about trying to say stop thinking that you know all the answers because you don't and try to learn from people who are really really good. I love learning things from people who are really really good to say you know something we should be doing that. And in this new area of AI which we've got into our for our grant making you know things are changing so fast we need to think about how we work together to make the maximise what we have and use it in the best possible way. So it's an interesting time for us all and I think but but one that we we have to keep on reminding people well I do anyway as a CEO of the Community Foundation Northern Ireland is that Northern Ireland sits here doing I think amazing innovative brilliant work in the voluntary community sector but we need more funding to support that and we need to work out why people would give to us and what can we do to make it easy for them to give to us and what is the impact that we can articulate to them about why they should give yeah absolutely and I think both in terms of that question of impact and also that question of why people have a sense of connection to a particular place there's I mean that's a whole other conversation that's absolutely fascinating and really complicated. But yeah it it's often I think assumed to be much simpler as oh you live here so that you kind of care about here but it you know these days the places that people feel an uh you know an affinity for are incredibly surprising and often have nothing to do with whether they happen to be no absolutely absolutely nothing to do and I think social justice and the foundations that we're part I'm part of the social justice network uh socialist foundations network I think that's because people are particularly young if you're looking at the future and young philanthropists will be particularly interested in social justice I think and and and that's why you know as a foundation we're we even in our endowment we're an ethical investor and have been for the last 13 14 years because people also ask us that is how do you invest your investment and it's not negative screening it's positive screening as well and saying how do you invest your endowment and how ethical is that there and how ethical is your grant giving and do you look at it with a equality lens and you you you have to be able to answer those questions because that's what people are more interested in now in the past. It's not that look I'm doing on to you poor people here's some money and do at that that's going it's it's what's the impact and how ethical is it and and what do I want to see as a donor and what do I want to see as a grantmaker and what do you want to have as a community organisation. And those are the conversations that I think are evolving at a relatively fast speed in my opinion and but ones that we all have to be and have to be not anxious and defensive about having you know open to saying look maybe we could we could do it better. We absolutely um we know for sure we could do things loads better. We're constantly trying to look at what can we do better we could get better at that we should definitely get better at this you know what I mean and if you don't if you're not on that constantly asking your relevancy or your ability to attract uh money and give out money in it in in the proper way is not great then I don't think yeah absolutely listen Rasheen I've taken up altogether too much of your time so I'll I'll leave things there but just remain to say thanks ever so much for for coming on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

It's been really fascinating to hear all about the work that you're doing and wish you you know all the best with it in the future and definitely keep uh keep a keen eye on it. I'll put links in the show notes to places where people can find more information about some of the things that we've talked about. Yeah and certainly hope to have a chance at some point in the future firstly to meet in person which would always be nice um but also maybe to get you back on the show you know in a few years' time and see how things have moved on on some of these issues. Thank you so much it was brilliant thank you okay well my thanks again to Roshin for finding the time to come on the podcast. Really great to have a chance to talk to her and find out all about the work of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland. I will put links in the show notes to places where you can find more on some of the things that we discussed and find out more about the work that the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland does. If you're interested more broadly in issues around philanthropy and civil society check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters dot com. If you want to follow me on social media you can find me on LinkedIn and on Blue Sky. If you want to get in touch with some thoughts or suggestions for topics we could cover on the podcast or people I could talk to you can find the contact details at the Y Philanthropy Matters website. Other than that it just remains to say like subscribe uh follow the podcast do uh tell all your friends about it particularly if you've got colleagues or people that you think might be interested in some of the guests or topics if you've got the time and inclination please do leave us a nice review wherever it is that you get your podcasts because uh that certainly helps bump us up the algorithm and other than that I will see you next time by the way