SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, Rodery Davis, and this week I am joined by Martha McKenzie from the Civic Power Fund and Safina Ahmed from the John Elleman Foundation, which is a grant-making organisation based here in the UK. And we came together to talk about the future of campaigning and advocacy in the UK. UK specifically, but I have to say a lot of the issues that we talked about go much wider than just the UK. And the starting point for this was a piece of research that Safina and Martha were jointly involved in and commissioning from UCL Academics there, looking at this question of the current context and some of the future challenges around organisations in civil society that engage in campaigning and advocacy work. And I'll put links in the show notes to where you can find that research and some other kind of material around that. So we had a really interesting conversation talking about what the current context was like for campaigning and advocacy organisations, why it is that the legitimacy of this particular function of civil society has increasingly been called into question. I mean, there have always been challenges, but why is it at this moment in time that they feel perhaps uh stronger than ever? Um how does this relate to what is going on politically with the rise of nativist populism uh and the far right uh in the UK? We also talked about um what it looks like in terms of infrastructure to support uh campaigning and advocacy. So the Civic Power Fund itself exists to do that, to act as an intermediary between funders and kind of grassroots organisations that are working on campaigning and advocacy uh uh issues and what role do they play in that? Is it partly about allowing people to find the organizations and individuals they can fund? Is it also about kind of managing some of those relationships so that the the risk profile or the perceived risk profile of organisations can be fit between funders and those doing the work on the ground? And is that kind of crucial when you're talking about the link between more institutional funders like foundations and sort of grassroots activists and social movements? Um we also talked uh a bit about whether there have been a shift away from some of the kind of traditional structures of the charity sector, um, either in terms of the way organisations are are choosing to uh to set themselves up, so the kind of emergence of new forms of digital online movements and what the implications of that are for more traditional charity campaigning and advocacy, and also whether organisations are choosing not to structure as registered charities, for instance, increasingly because they find that the limitations when it comes to engaging on issues that might be seen as political are becoming too much of a barrier. So we talked about all kinds of things. We also talked about um competition and collaboration uh between funders and within civil society, and actually how we can meaningfully shift towards more collaborative approaches between funders, um, which is something that we all talk about, but is much harder to kind of do in practice. So without further ado, let's go into the conversation. Uh I hope you all really enjoy this one. I found it fascinating. Um, and uh as I say, I'll be back at the end for the usual bit of housekeeping. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Stefina Ahmad and Martha Mackenzie. Hi to both of you. Hi. Hello. Hello, well, great to have you on the podcast. Um, and yeah, we're here to talk about issues around campaigning and advocacy by charities and by civil society, particularly with a kind of UK focus, but I'm sure the issues will go uh more broad than that. Um, and the hook really is a piece of research that you've both been involved in commissioning uh called The Future of Campaigning and Advocacy in Britain. So before we kind of dig into some of the issues, maybe the best place to start is if you could just tell us a bit from both of your perspectives about why it was that you got involved in commissioning that piece of research and why you feel it's important right now. Um maybe you could kick us off, Safina.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Great. Well, thank you very much. Um so I work for a foundation called John Ellerman Foundation, and we have shifted our strategy as of last year, and through our grant making, we're really focused on this idea of how do you support organisations that at their core are focused on change-making work, and that can be on the inside track or the outside track or both, and do so in a way that really centers this idea of having a thesis on how to advance justice through your change-making work and how to ensure that you are working really in deep community with those that are impacted by the issues and causes that you care about. And we try and support work that relates to things like the triple planetary crisis, so that's climate, nature, and pollution, work that's to do with polarization and political equality, and work that's about wealth inequalities and economic systems and models that are in service of people and planet. And so, in terms of this piece of research, it's been a bit of a long time in the making, but you know, the context is as relevant now as it probably was when this was just a bit of a seed of an idea that I spoke to Martha from Civic Power Fund about, who obviously you'll hear from next. And so Martha and I were really kind of cognizant of the fact that, you know, the context is changing very rapidly, especially in terms of our politics. And we're seeing this kind of huge shift in terms of how people consume and engage with their politics, how we um think about the world, what we see or don't see based on the kind of circles or bubbles that we kind of operate within and the way in which we are finding more and more that there is this kind of fracture, fragmentation, polarization happening. And we felt that within that there was a thread that we needed to kind of pull and explore more deeply around how do we get a sense of what communities are actually dealing with, how they're actually experiencing life and the ways in which civil society or however you want to describe it, um, but how we as a society can come together and respond to that, and particularly for philanthropic organizations. So I think that we do lots of great talking in the sector, lots of great thinking, plenty of doing as well. But one of the things that maybe we skirt around is this idea of what does advocacy and campaigning look like? What is the role of philanthropy in supporting that? And we really wanted to try and make that argument more strongly about the fact that there is a role for philanthropy to support with policy and advocacy work. And we also really wanted to try and build something that had a very UK-focused perspective because a lot of the time we're relying on literature, thinking, support from other um geographies, and they are super relevant, and the research itself does uh reference work that's happening in Australia and North America, for example. But we we felt really strongly that we needed to make the case for advocating campaigning work and to do so in a way that was UK focused and aimed at a philanthropic audience, and just show that right now, more than ever, building that sense of community power and being engaged with that in a true, meaningful way is what's going to help us make progress on some of the issues I described, particularly the work that we're doing at our foundation.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Thanks, Safina. Um, and a build on that. So I'm based at the Civic Power Fund, um, and we start with a central thesis, which is right across the UK, our communities are struggling and their rights are under threat. And we see that philanthropy often treats the symptoms of this disaffection, but rarely the cause, which we would describe as the imbalance of power in society and in our democracy. So we were founded in 2022, almost five years old, to address this and really try and get more philanthropic resource into specifically community organizing and building that people power that can bring people together and help them achieve and win lasting change through an understanding of their own power and how to build that civic power. And we've been working a bit over the past five years to understand, okay, this is our central hypothesis, where is philanthropic resource going? And we commissioned an annual survey working with John Cracknell at the hour is late to really map philanthropic funding in the UK. And the last iteration of that told us that only around 4.5% of UK philanthropy was going towards social justice. But then even within social justice, there was a huge concentration around certain theories of change. So about half of that funding is going towards service delivery work, so supporting those in need, and about a quarter is going to lobbying and influencing the kind of inside game work. But by contrast, we're seeing around 0.2% going to community organizing and that sort of outside power building. And so we knew from a sort of um quantitative basis that the ecosystem, the campaigning ecosystem itself wasn't being funded. And I think as Safina was saying, what we really wanted to unpack a bit more is well, what is the experience of people working in this space? Like, why is that? Let's hear about the importance of an ecosystem approach. Let's hear about the importance of that outside approach from those who are actually doing the work every day and bring that data to life with quality stories so that we can continue to make that direct pitch to philanthropy, that we have a critical role to play in this moment and in funding this type of work.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, absolutely. That's really helpful. And I guess before we kind of dig into some of the issues particularly, I mean, what from your point of view are some of the key headlines from this piece of research? I mean, what are the things that sort of stood out in terms of some of those qualitative findings that you mentioned?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

I I think the big one which didn't come as a surprise was the extent to which we do need to be working as an ecosystem. And at the Civic Power Fund, we actually take an ecosystem approach to our funding. So we fund across the forest of community organizing, as we call it. So we fund seeds, organisations that often have deep roots in a place, usually do sort of service provision, community engagement, want to build power, but don't yet have the funding or the capability to do that. We also fund the roots of community organizing. So those organizations that building civic power, campaigning, that's their core business. And we fund that work so it can expand and build a field across the UK. But alongside those two sectors of investment, we fund water so that infrastructure that helps all of those groups thrive from be it digital organizing or HR support. And we support the creation of canopies. So people being able to come together and sort of build up the forest through different experiences, different theories of change, different networks, because we believe that the more we work together, the more we'll achieve. And I think seeing that come to life through the report was really exciting, but also seeing that a lot of organizations weren't necessarily operating in an environment that enabled that, be that through kind of competition within philanthropy, be that through kind of governance structures that don't allow or encourage collaboration, be that through people feeling like their different theories of change were superior and there wasn't necessarily the space to come together. So I think it was a very illuminating report in terms of understanding we do need that ecosystem, but in the philanthropic sector, we're not really funding in a way that supports groups to create that ecosystem and that really centres particularly the grassroots communities who are vital to that work.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

And if I might just add, I think the methodology for the research was uh designed with some of those points in mind. Um, we deliberately wanted to work with UCL Policy Lab in a way that meant that they were doing kind of quite an in-depth qualitative analysis of um the ecosystem. And that meant that there were things like roundtables, one-to-one meetings. We were very intentional about trying to bring together quite a broad coalition of people and organizations, including people that maybe hadn't been describing themselves as advocacy or campaigning organizations anymore for various reasons, or maybe didn't even think of themselves in that way at all in the first place. And I think even in being part of that methodology, we were able to kind of observe and realize the ways in which this is an ecosystem that just isn't being tended to. And obviously, Martha has just described a really beautiful vision of what it could look like if we tended to this and we could build that canopy in that forest. But you know, she also shared the funding justice volume three statistics that show that we're not tending to it, we're not prioritizing it, we're not looking after it in the way that it deserves. And even being part of those conversations, you can see the kind of hollowing out that's happened and the ways in which we've forgotten a little bit of that methodology, that uh ability to connect, that strength that comes from connecting. So I think that comes through then in the findings themselves, and actually we maybe have developed a little bit of discomfort with like plurality or range of methodologies, which actually is a huge strength, but we've kind of forgotten the ways in which they can be. So not really adding anything massively meaningful to Martha's point, but I do think it was by design that we were able to get into quite nitty-gritty areas of that that are borne out in the findings.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Yeah, absolutely. And and I mean there's loads to pick up on there. But you mentioned there towards the end the the idea of plurality and and sort of pluralism. I'd love to pick up on that because I mean it's something we've talked about quite a bit on the podcast in various conversations, but certainly when we're talking about campaigning and advocacy within civil society, it feels like it's an important topic because you know the the idealised version certainly, you know, in the past is one in which there is space for a kind of wide range of different approaches, both in terms of what people think is important, but also kind of how they're going about seeking change, and that you know things work well when people from different points on the spectrum are able to kind of work productively together, yet it feels as though in an increasingly polarised world, maybe that's one of the things that's in that's becoming more and more difficult. And it felt like that came out across in the the research. Is that yours? Does that sort of reflect your sense of where we're at in terms of the relationship between philanthropy and kind of civil society advocacy? That actually it is becoming increasingly fractured and kind of getting people to work together and and respect that there are people who may have kind of different approaches and different views, but that everybody is able to exist within a pluralistic civil society is actually takes work and that we need to do that work.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

I I wouldn't argue with the points that you're making, and I I can really resonate with them. And I I think that's right, but I do wonder if there are just kind of some other points to consider. One of the things that came out in one of the roundtables was this idea that we did have a period of like wins and feeling like progress was being made, and probably, you know, in the run-up to the recession was a real time in which it felt like there was like success to get success and so on and so forth. And there's you know, I'm not saying since 2007, 2008 we've had no successes, but you know, people did reflect on that kind of history of um where we'd got to, and I wonder a little bit, and it's something we consider at the foundation too, this kind of tension that can sometimes exist, whereby we forget that charity is more than service. Uh obviously, it's a really core principle of charity, and even if you're not using the term charity, you might choose not to be a registered charity, for example. But for the sake of the point I'm making, I'm just going to use that as a catch-all term. But actually, charity is about the pursuit of justice too. And I wonder a little bit about whether we've lost sight of that, and in so doing, we've then got to a space and place where we're to Martha's point earlier, kind of focusing on the symptoms rather than the root causes. And I think that we probably have done a little bit of the kind of focus on symptoms because we've had some successes and we're trying to sustain that, or we are just trying to sustain uh like try not to succeed or lose any more ground, or you know, there's all sorts of reasonable reasons for that, or we're trying to keep a slightly lower profile because it feels more tense, we're a bit unsure about what we should be doing next. You know, that's I'm sure there's lots of ways in which we rationalise this as funders, but actually it's doing the work a huge disservice, and I think we do need to kind of remember that charity is service, but it is also charity for justice. And I wonder as well that sometimes when things don't feel like we have the wins that we used to have or we're making the progress that we used to have, of course, there's a lot of introspection required and a lot of observation of the world around you and whether some people have made things harder or better or whatever it might be. But I think we have to recognise to your point about plurality, what we're looking for is different to the status quo. Keeping things as they are is very easy, it's a very simple message. Don't change anything, let's keep things as they are. But building something that is pluralistic and you know, this vision of what could be always suggests trade-offs. And actually, sometimes we have to make trade-offs in order to get to that world as it could be, and it might mean that people who had lots have to give up a little in order to make room for other people who have much less. And I think it's that kind of conversation and dialogue that we've lost somewhere in in all of this, and I also think that when people start to think, oh, I don't want to make trade-offs, you've got to kind of argue the point that we already are making trade-offs because the world as it is means that naturally lots of people are getting less and they are suffering those trade-offs. So I just wonder a little bit about that point of if we could just remember that charity is still justice and the pursuit of justice, then I think some of the points you would uh you were raising would just unlock themselves a little bit and we could move a bit forward on them.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, and and I think strongly agree with all of that. And one of the things that I thought was very interesting in the report was yes, naming that we have to find ways to disagree with each other, but also surfacing that throughout history, activists or social justice activists have often been at the leading edge of change and often really pushed against the grain, often at great personal risk. And I think of the sort of black and Asian activists of the 70s and 80s in Britain that completely changed our equalities landscape and what great personal risk they took on in having those fights. And really strongly recommend a book by Priti Dillon that came out a few years ago that looks at a lot of case studies in this space. And so sort of echoing some of Safina's points, not to dismiss that work, because actually it's often activists that are at the leading edge of change and pushing us into something better because they have no choice, because they themselves are under attack. But I also think one of the reasons why we at Civic Power Fund place such a high premium on organizing is that it's such an effective method to hold very strong and clear principles, but also build bonds of solidarity across difference. And organizing as a practice is grounded in meeting people where they are. And you can be absolutely clear that you want transformative change, but you understand that change takes building relationships, it takes bringing people with you, it takes knowing and caring about other people and really sort of deeply believing that we have more in common. And it's very effective because of that. And it's a practice that can win really big picture change by shifting the balance of power, but but can do so really by bringing other people sort of with us and with them. And you look at, I think an organization like At Build Change is a fantastic example of this. You know, they believe in transformative organizing, they want to see a world transform, but they want all of us to be able to build that together and work in relationship with each other and kind of understand that. And I think the final point I'd say on that is I think we're in a space now where there is a lot of work happening to sort of deliberately sow division. And actually, many of these organizations, they're not trying to do that, but they're being targeted and very intentionally sort of raised up. And I think You know, we do a lot of work with frontline groups who might be supporting migrants, asylum seekers, refugees. And these are groups that have existed for decades doing sort of vital charitable work. They're supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our society, but they're also working deep in community to build sort of bonds of solidarity, to bring people together, to create welcoming spaces. They're now being targeted as if they're really sort of radical organizations deliberately sowing division, and that's not what they're doing at all. But the sort of language that has entered our lexicon around some of this is creating kind of such deep divisions and such polarization. And I think sometimes it's really important to take a step back and say that's intentional. And actually, there are so many organizations just doing absolutely vital charitable work that don't want to be in this space. They've not chosen this, but they have no choice because of the external environment. And therefore, what are we going to do to stand with them and stand up to that and recognise the vital nature of their work?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess going to that and tying to what Sabina was saying about the need to focus on the idea that charity or the work of sort of charities is at least as much about justice and sort of campaigning and advocacy advocacy for change as it is about service delivery. You mentioned there that that the kind of external environment for some of this work has become more difficult because there are people deliberately seeking to solve sort of uh discord and and polarization. And I wondered if you know, is that one of the challenges that we're seeing at the moment that that idea of um one of the functions of charity being around not just working within the status quo to kind of ameliorate needs uh as they are, but pushing for things to be sort of fundamentally different? Yes, it's always challenging, but it seems like it's being kind of questioned more than ever before. And actually, at the moment, is the fact that the sort of fundamental legitimacy of that approach being called into question by certain kind of commentators and political figures is that a new challenge? And is that something that kind of philanthropy might need to address as well if we're going to uh kind of make it possible for civil society and uh organizations that focus on advocacy to operate, that we kind of need to push back against those narratives that undermine that legitimacy?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

I think so, yes. And I'm not sure it's a new challenge insofar as you know, I remember being told to stick to my knitting 10 years ago, right? This is a we've heard this refrain about the relationship between charities and campaigning and justice before. I think what makes the current environment quite unique is how extreme things have got and how much fear is now part of it. So I think before you saw criticism and critique, whereas now you're seeing online doxing, you're seeing lots of legal suits that charities can't possibly defend themselves, you're seeing physical attacks on people's premises alongside this narrative that has over the past decade made it harder to do this work anyway, from things like the Lobbying Act, changes to the Charities Act, legislation around extremism. So we've already had a kind of legislative environment and a sort of public environment that makes it more difficult. And now you're adding like intimidation, fear, targeting into that mix, and that's what feels quite different. And one observation I'd have as well is that I think for the first time we're really seeing the chilling effect come into play and philanthropy really feeling that as well. What does feel new is the extent to which philanthropy itself is being targeted and where funders have supported really vital work that's being lifted up, you know, names of trustees of philanthropic organizations being published, addresses being published, individuals that that fund this work being more directly targeted. And my fear is that that creates a much magnified chilling effect that people at a service level or an on-the-ground level or a grassroots level are genuinely and legitimately very afraid. And so pulling back from public life, pulling back from exposure, not talking about their work because they don't want to draw attention to it at the same time that the conditions of funding this work are also becoming more challenging and people are being targeted in that space for the first time. And there's a real risk that this work sort of vacates from public life, and then people feel more at risk in funding it. And the impact is we have less of the work, people are less safe, and there's less money at precisely the time when we should be doubling down on this work and feeling just so incredibly confident that this is vital charitable work that is done to achieve the society that we're all working towards.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Um and I'd be really interested, actually, in your your view on this, Fina, because I wonder, in terms of what Martha's saying there, I think absolutely the the kind of genuine threats to you know the physical well-being of people working on frontlines in organizations are to be taken extremely seriously and a very kind of worrying new development. And the fact that that's now moved sort of further up the funding chain and the organisations that are supporting that work are being identified and individuals working for them as well is deeply worrying. But I wonder what you think the the role of philanthropy and of kind of foundations and funding organisations is in this situation, because it seems to me, although they obviously have sort of genuine concerns about uh being targeted, they might be in a position to take on some of that risk or to sort of show bravery and boldness on behalf of some of those organizations that are genuinely right there on the front line. Do you think this is a moment where funders kind of need to step up to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Yeah, I really do. I think that what's happening is willful, it's coordinated. It's like they have done a very in-depth and thorough power map, and they can see the way in which this ecosystem relates to itself and to others within the same ecosystem. And so for me, I feel like we need to be as organized and clear in the ways in which power exists with the actors that are um criticizing or impacting the really vital work that Martha has so passionately described. I think the role of funders is very clear. Um, we have to keep funding this work more so now than ever. We cannot keep being in this position where we're having conversations saying, aren't things worse than they used to be? And then ceding any responsibility for trying to improve that. And so if we want to go differently, we have to do differently. And where I've got to, and this is the kind of work that we're doing at the foundation, is trying to do a little bit of sense making that is very much about myth busting. I think we have a feeling that oh, we could not possibly fund advocacy and campaigning work. It's not charitable. Myth number one, that's totally incorrect. It is within charitable aims and purposes, it can be funded by independent charitable funders, it must be. You know, let's start having those kind of adult-to-adult conversations with each other about we need to fund this work, we need to rebuild community power and efficacy, we need to safeguard and protect the rights that matter to us, and we need to regain the rights that we've lost. You know, this is like a very clear strategy. We know how to fund it, we know what methodologies exist in terms of supporting inside track and outside track work. So I think there's that element that this is legal. I think the other thing that we can do is really understand the role of the regulator and try to demystify that a little bit, make it less scary, make it less like it's a there to be punitive and to stop our activities. Obviously, regulation does imply some of those things, but let's understand where are the lines on that. What does it permit uh permit and what doesn't it permit and why not? Let's understand the kind of regulatory frameworks because otherwise, you know what ends up happening? We all start to get these sense in our mind of the things that we're not allowed to do without knowing if we're definitely not allowed to do them. Let's miss bust on that as well. I think the other thing that we can be investing in and ought to be investing in is crisis communications. You know, when the attacks come, we should be able to respond meaningfully and thoughtfully and support those that we fund as well as ourselves, because obviously it's happening to some charitable funders directly, and we can only assume it will continue to happen to a wider pool of charitable funders over time. And we need to be having good, solid conversations with our teams about what we're taking on and why and why it matters and the risks related to that, but also the opportunities. It doesn't all have to be threat-oriented, and the same is true of the conversations we have with our boards, because obviously they are really vital to kind of creating a permissive environment for the kind of work that's set out in this research piece. And then the last thing I would just say is we really do need to work in coordinated ways. So I'm not saying we all have to create pooled fund after pool fund. We already have civic power fund. We don't need to necessarily create anything else or alternative to that, but I think we need to understand what are we all doing within this ecosystem, what roles are we fulfilling, who's doing some things better than others, what can we learn from each other? I don't think we all need to invest in some of the things I've said. If one of us has done it, let's just share that out and get it out there and support others as as needed. Um so yeah, there I think there is absolutely a role for independent charitable funders. I think it is time for us to step into the breach and work helpfully and meaningfully alongside the organizations we fund. And I don't think we should kid ourselves uh either. The organizations we fund are hurting a lot harder than we are, and we have a lot of kind of privilege and protection, and we need to be utilising that in service of our own organizations because we we are needed, but also ultimately in service of the organizations that we fund.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yeah, I think that's a yeah, really interesting. And and just picking up on what you were saying there, um sort of penultimate point about kind of working more together, it was something I was going to ask as you were going along, because it feels like in a lot of situations the the gap between the rhetoric within the philanthropy world about how important collaboration is and everybody's saying, Oh yes, we must collaborate more, and the reality of how much sort of actually happens is quite wide. In this particular instance, do you think that the gap that's there if if organizations are not collaborating enough at the moment around these sorts of issues, is it because during difficult times there's a sort of tendency for everybody to retreat to their own institutional boundaries? Or you know, is there any element of people still wanting to be able to kind of put their own name to things and that therefore they kind of strike, you know, plow their own furrow because if they're going to fund things, they want to be able to kind of attribute what's happening. What do you think are the main sort of barriers we're looking at?

SPEAKER_02 33:08

I'm sure Martha will have some good points on this. Um, but I will just say I think it's probably all of those are more, right? I think in some ways there'll be a desire not to do anything that could create tension or you know, a spotlight being shone on an organization, in which case they may retreat completely from this space or not be interested in it at all. Um, again, I would argue that it is possible to do these things quietly, impactfully, and not be centered in it. Um, nor should a funder ever seek that. But obviously, I know that for some funders that attribution is important and you know, all to the good on that. I think for me, there is this sense now that we are in very complex, uncertain, ambiguous times, and we've got to do a lot of sense making, soul searching, strategy design, and I'm really for that. Like we should be very thoughtful about how we do the work that we're doing and try to fulfil our ambitions. But I would just add another word in, which is urgency, and I'm not saying this to be scaremongering, but I think we do need to work with a bit more pace and purpose, and that's where coordination or collaboration really comes into its own. You know, John Elman Foundation has always confidently described itself as a generalist or responsive funder. Martha Civic Power Fund is much more specialist than we are. Part of the reason we have partnered is because by partnering with a specialist, we can raise our own uh skill set, abilities, and confidence to operate in this space. And so that's why we're able to make the transition that we made last year with our last uh with our new strategy, so that we can fund work that's to do with um outside track related work because previously we were much more confident and able to support inside track work. So, you know, this in itself is a collaboration. This is a way in which we don't have to suddenly become as expert as Civic Power Fund, but we can become as useful as Civic Power Fund, maybe not as useful, but close to. Um so, you know, I think we have to start thinking a little bit more um with pace and purpose.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

I again I unsurprisingly agree with everything Safina said. I'd just add a point, which is I think it's important to name this as a contested space. And we obviously saw really rapid and effective collaboration around COVID, where it just felt very obvious that communities needed support and they needed it now, whereas this space is messier and more contested, and that is harder for people to come together around. And so I think the points that Safina made at the beginning around recognising that this is core charitable work. And not only is it core charitable work, but for many of us, you know, protecting democracy, protecting civic space, campaigning for justice is actually how we achieve our objects, and just naming that and sort of trying to find the space where we can see that there is so much common ground and so much urgency and necessity, I think is going to be key.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

I'm really interested as well, Martha, particularly in terms of the position of an organization like Civic Power Fund. I think where I've spoken to other people in the past who work in kind of intermediary organizations, particularly that sit between kind of frontline social justice advocates and grassroots organizations and funders. How much of what you do is about kind of enabling the funders to kind of fund things that they might struggle to have the risk appetite for themselves because maybe the organizations are working on issues that they would find a little bit, you know, scary, or they're using tactics that maybe you know are more kind of direct action focused, and the funders therefore might find that difficult. Is that part of it is about kind of trying to act as that bridge that allows the money to get from those places where it maybe isn't quite risk-tolerant enough to go directly, but get it down to the places where you're funding things that are genuinely going to have an impact and make change.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Yes, it is. And I'll take as an example, we're currently working on one collaborative that has 10 different funders in it. And for a lot of those funders, the work that they're resorting is absolutely key, but they wouldn't necessarily have the systems to move at speed. Moving on your own is scary, whereas moving with nine colleagues, you feel much more protected. You also have more impact because your contribution is times 10. And so therefore the pot that's going towards us is much larger. And definitely there is a risk insulation point in that we bring a closeness to the work, in that to a certain extent we understand it and they're therefore can move more confidently at pace. And I think that combination of things in the case of this collaborative has allowed those funders to move very quickly and move confidently. And that and that's the whole point of creating a specialist intermediary. It's it's having that proximity so that we do our best to fund the work well and fund the work in a way that we know really delivers for those organizations in terms of what they need, but also that we can build that sort of collective energy, share that risk, grow that impact by working together and by working in collaboration. The flip side of that is then we can also share the lessons all at once. So those 10 funders are hearing at the same time what's happening at field level, what's necessary, what more do we need to do? And then hopefully we'll act together and take sort of similar paths together based on those lessons and that learning.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. Um I wanted to ask something as well, actually, to both of you. I think in and around what we've been talking about now, I guess one of the realities of what we've seen over the last decade and probably a bit more is that an increasing amount of the focus when it comes to uh kind of social change and particularly kind of social change campaigns that have become quite high profile, is that they they sit increasingly kind of outside of the traditional charity sphere. So increasingly we're talking about organisations that don't take the form of registered charities and you know might kind of deliberately choose not to do that because they see the that kind of um structure as too limiting. Is that a kind of an opportunity for philanthropy? Because actually there are all of these organizations out there, so that if you broaden your you know your horizons, actually there's all this stuff you could be funding, or does it present a challenge because there's still, for a lot of funders, the sort of starting point is well, we really fund within the charity sector, and so you know, even when they're looking at social change or social justice, that's the lens through which they're looking at it. What are you what are you seeing in terms of that?

SPEAKER_02 39:53

I mean, I can share a little bit about John Ellman Foundation's journey on this exact point. I think that it's one of those myths that needs a little bit of busting. Um, I think that as charitable funders, we feel that we should only and can only fund charities, registered charities. And to an extent that's true. Sometimes we get tempted to do things like that because we also think it will kind of limit the number of applications. It generally doesn't. And so one of the things that we did um as part of our new strategy and its implementation is we commissioned a legal review of our funding guidelines. And one of the reasons we did that is because we were concerned about the fact that we had made this very conscious decision to support organisations that are not registered charities within certain kind of parameters. They need to demonstrate a charitable purpose, asset lots, all of that kind of stuff that you would anticipate and expect. And, you know, that legal review had said that we had pretty much nailed it. There were a couple of things that we needed to update in our funding guidelines and diligence processes, they were very fixable. And, you know, at least now we can go on with that confidently. And it's also a protective measure that if we are subject to vexatious media or criticism or charity commission review, we know that we've had that legal advice and we followed it. So it's a very kind of simple solution. But I guess your point is less about how is this practically um possible, but it's like the philosophy point, isn't it? Within the sector, there is this reticence. And I guess in some ways, we know where we kind of generally the spaces we occupy within the ecosystem, and it's probably more kind of registered organizations with a turnover, with some kind of like you know, systems and processes in place, governance even, etc. And of course, I don't think that we should pretend that as a philanthropic sector that we can be all things to all people or everywhere all at once, but eventually some of these organizations, these movements, do kind of evolve and change, and you know, people that were kind of in these non-constituted movements might move into charitable spaces which are more constituted. And so I do think there is a way in which even if we're not funding that work because it's not feasible for us to, and it doesn't need funding, it could even ruin it by being funded. We should be in dialogue and can we should feel connected to that work because eventually there will be a role for us as philanthropic foundations, and I don't think we should lose sight of that. So that's one kind of key point I would make. And I do feel that if we're not tending to the bits that we're responsible for, then we're never really going to enable the bits that we're not responsible for. I think all of this is quite interconnected and interdependent. Um, so even if you have to stay in your lane, just remember that your lane is having impacts elsewhere.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Yeah, and and just to pick up on that, you know, I think the research that we talked about at the beginning, one of the things about that is the ecosystem, that we need a variety of actors to work together. And large registered charities have a vital role alongside grassroots or civic organizing. But one thing I think is true, and that is that larger organizations struggle to share power, and with that, they also struggle to collaborate. And part of that is governance structures and the way that they're set up. Like if you ever sit on the board of a charitable um organization, actually like designing success metrics and accountability metrics around collaboration is really hard. So people focus singularly on their organization. But often these are also very established organizations that have moved away from grassroots work. And if you genuinely want to share power, you have To mean that. And Sarah Campbell, who's an academic and previously worked at JRS, she has this great phrase that's if you tell someone you're sharing power with them, that's what they that they expect. So if you start bringing people into your organization, but you're not actually letting them get involved in strategy setting, you're not actually following their lead, it crumbles quite quickly. So there is something about the landscape shifting in terms of big and larger charities being aware of actually how they might collaborate more and how they need to shift power and the grassroots doing that much more organically. I think also just to speak to some of Sabina's points, sometimes it is riskier to fund this work, but there are so many organizations that make that possible. You know, obviously it's something we do at Civit PowerFund. You've got the Movements Trust, absolutely brilliant, moving millions through charitably to movements around the world. You've got the social change nest, but also Sabina and I have been on a learning journey together with funders together about big local. And what's been fascinating about that is, you know, Big Local granted to 150 different local constituencies or local areas. They were a charity using lottery money, and they often granted to non-charities. They had really robust grant agreements, but they had huge flexibility within that. And you sort of think, if they're able to do that, we can all do that. We can all learn from that, that it's very possible to grant charitably to non-charitable organizations and do it in a way that really encourages that sharing of power and that sort of building of civic grassroots infrastructure. The final thing I'd just say on this is, and I, and Safina began to touch on this there at the end as well, is that there is something about understanding our role at this moment. And philanthropy's role is not to direct movements and control movements, but we do stand in solidarity with movements and we have capital to liberate, to support people doing the work. And if we can see our role as that, as in genuine partnership, like liberating the resources for the people who know what's needed and know what's happening, I think that has the potential to be very fruitful and joyful and allow us to quite stand in communities together at this moment.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Yeah, absolutely. And one thing I wanted to ask actually was just just playing on my mind while while you were talking, is when we're sort of making the case to philanthropic funders for what you know, why they should get involved in funding more of this kind of um advocacy and campaigning work and funding movements. There's obviously one version of that case which is well, you have this set of charitable objects, and actually, you know, you should be one way to address that is to kind of address the the underlying causes rather than the symptoms through camp campaigning and advocacy. And I can see that case being made. But then I suppose there's the other bit which is actually increasingly in a world where you know we're concerned about the um the kind of erosion of civic life and associational life, and the fact that people feel sort of less sense of agency over lots of different aspects of their life in the face of major societal challenges. Is there actually a pretty strong case to be made for philanthropy to fund this kind of work? Because the nature of the work itself is beneficial to everybody involved. So it's not even really about the outputs you're delivering, in so much as it is about fostering participation and civic engagement. And do you see people kind of making that case or du or buying into that idea?

SPEAKER_01 47:20

I really strongly agree with what you said, but I don't necessarily know if we're quite there yet. And part of the reason I think that is, is that funding in that ro in that way does require a step change. And it requires thinking actually, we're not going to tie money to specific timeframes, we're not going to tie money to specific outcomes. We're going to see an organization doing brilliant work and recognize that the nature of that work, the way that they're building relationships, the way that they're coming together, the way that that organization is clearly sort of trusted and capable of reinvigorating civic life, that's what we value. And therefore we're going to fund long-term unrestricted and back that because that's the kind of money that makes that work possible. And I think there is a growing understanding that that type of funding needs to exist for this work to happen. But I wouldn't say that there's widespread recognition or engagement with how to shift funding in that way. I still think there's quite a lot of work to be done. And so some funders are thinking very deeply about this and have started to move in that way. But that sense of the way that boards operate, the way charity governance operates, the way just like human nature operates, it's hard to commit to that long term. And you know, we saw some of that around COVID, and then we saw a snapping back. And it's how do you really sort of surface it and show? And actually, the big local example is another great example of this. That was a 10-year time horizon, maximum flexibility. Some incredible work happened. Very little went wrong, really. And yet we still find this really hard. So I think it is absolutely right. But there's more work to be done to change how we fund to make it possible.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

Um, and I would just add to that, I completely agree, but we're a sector of sacred cows, right? In that everyone, you know, you start your funding strategy and people start by talking about categories. And then within that, we start to talk about different things that we want to achieve within category label A, B, or C. You know, that's pretty natural. And we also end up thinking that public money can't be used for things like big local, or you know, we end up having a lot of transfer within the sector. So you get people who might have been in local authority grant-making organizations and applying the exact same methodologies to an independent charitable funding uh organization where you know the remit and the parameters are vastly different. So I guess for me, one bit of advice I would give is a kind of really very intentionally questioning everything. Um, and so if you look at an organization like Civic Power Fund, it leads with approach. Community organizing is the approach, and yes, it's got specialisms and you know, thematic themes, uh if that's such a way of putting it, within that. But you know, it's you know very badly summarized what civic power stands for, but it's different, isn't it? It didn't start with a load of funding categories, it started with a central thesis of this is the approach that we are backing and going to put everything into to build community power. John Alleman Foundation, the decision that we took last year was to remove our funding categories and say foremost in everything that we're doing with our funding, we will start with an approach. We are backing change-making organizations and they have to be at their core change making, um, and they have to have a thesis on advancing justice and doing so in partnership with impacted communities. So if you don't meet any of that criteria, it doesn't matter what else you're doing, you can't be funded by us. And so, yes, we've got you know themes within that we want to do work on areas A, B, and C, but it's different because it's not the funding category-led approach, which is how we used to operate and a lot of other organizations operate. And I think it can be really hard to figure out how to make those shifts because it didn't come to us quickly, but it did come to us eventually. And I feel like I want to be really explicit and open about what we did, not saying that everyone should do that, but just saying that it is possible to make those shifts because we get very ingrained and used to doing things in a certain way. And even I can see in some of the organizations that we're currently funding, you know, they may have taken certain methodologies to making change happen, but they, like the rest of us, and as we've discussed in this conversation, are realizing that we're not winning the argument, we're not seeing the change that we feel is necessary. And so I had a really refreshing chat with an organization that we're going to be funding, where they said, look, these are the methods that we've used, and now we want to add this tool around kind of narrative, storytelling, and building kind of community um support for this issue and add that to the work that we're doing. Um and so we all have to start thinking more expansively about what it is that we need to be doing, especially in times like these.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Yeah, absolutely. Um I'm aware that we're coming up on the end of the hour that I've got. I don't want to take up too much of your time, but before I let you both go, um I just wanted to ask sort of briefly for your well, first of all, kind of where things are going next in terms of this this research and other work that you've got that's linked to it, and also what your sense is of kind of what the most important things that anyone listening to this conversation, you know, who works for a funder or maybe an individual donor themselves or works in civil society can be doing um to try and kind of improve the situation around campaigning advocacy, particularly here in the UK. Martha, I don't know if you want to go first.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Yeah, very happily, and thanks so much for the chat today. I've really enjoyed it. In terms of what's coming next, we do have the next iteration of funding justice coming out. So we'll have fresh data analysing even more grants from where social justice funding is going in the UK, and that's coming in early January. Um so look out for that. There'll be a public launch event that we'll send more details around. In terms of things to take away, I would say there's three things. One, don't be afraid in this moment, but really don't be afraid. It's going to take some moral courage, but we have that moral courage across this sector to collaborate, work with others so that we can move at scale, we can move as a community, and we can move in a way that really services the work. And three, be willing to take that step change in how we fund, trust the organizations, fund long-term, invest in them and their mission and their way of doing things, and then you'll see really incredible and beautiful results.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

I would just add, I really agree with what Martha said. I would just add that I think we need to be very honest in our descriptions of the context. I think we shouldn't hide away or shy away from just how difficult things are. I'm not saying that that isn't a reason to be hopeful and to not notice the things that are going well, but I do sometimes feel that we can perhaps be a little bit complacent about the urgency of the times. And you know, I know some of the conversations I can have with the people I work with in the sector where we think, oh, it's not so bad. And actually, I think we need to be a bit more honest about the the difficulties we're facing. That said, I don't think it's about being fatalistic or passively accepting what's happening. I think that we then need to be really clear, not just about the problem, the diagnosis. I think we then need to get into a much more solutions-oriented place and space. Um, and that comes back to my point about let's not be complacent, like let's start trying things and going differently and doing differently and achieving more as a result. Um, and I would just really say that whatever you're working on, um, whatever your themes are, your categories, your way of describing your unique charitable foundation, I can guarantee that it will be enhanced by supporting advocacy and campaigning work, whether that's indirectly or directly through your own work. And so I would just really encourage people to take on the opportunity that this um piece of research is calling for. Let's fund more advocacy and campaigning work.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

Yeah, absolutely. A great set of uh suggestions from both of you uh there in terms of what people can do practically and and also just kind of in terms of that shift of mindset that we maybe need to go through as a sector. Um just amazing to say thanks ever so much to both of you. Uh great to have you on the podcast. I'll put links uh in the show notes to places where people can find the report and also um other bits and pieces that are relevant um and where they can find out more about uh John Ellerman and the Civic Power Fund. Um and I wish you both all of the best with all of it in the future.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

Thanks so much. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to Martha and to Safina for uh coming on the podcast. It was great to have a chance to talk to both of them about a really fascinating and important topic. Uh, I'll put links in the show notes to places where you can find uh the report that we were uh centering this conversation around. Also some things that Safina and Martha have both written uh that are relevant to the conversation we're having. I'll put some links to things that I've written that also might be of interest. Uh if you're interested more broadly in issues around philanthropy and civil society, do check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters.com. All kinds of articles, news updates, uh things about events that I've been involved in, all the back episodes of this podcast. So loads and loads of content to get stuck into. You can also get um updates from me on uh social media, so follow me on LinkedIn. Uh, you can also follow me on Blue Sky if you like the sound of silence, because I don't really tend to post very much on there. Uh so I'd say LinkedIn is probably a better bet for now. If you've got ideas for topics we could cover on the podcast or people that you think I could talk to, do get in touch. You can find my contact details at the Why Philanthropy Matters website. If you like the podcast and you think other people might like it too, do let them know, either electronically by giving us a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts, or by telling somebody in real life. Uh, you know, if you have a colleague or a friend that you think might enjoy one or more of these conversations, do uh give us a word of mouth recommendation because I think that really helps. Other than that, just say thanks ever so much for listening. I really appreciate it, and I will see you next time. Bye!