Are we always doing good? A blog about sharing power
Last month, I spoke at a discussion on sharing power in the trust and foundation sector, which was convened by A Better Way and New Philanthropy Capital (NPC). The session explored NPC’s report that they launched earlier this year – A rebalancing act: How funders can address power dynamics.
This piece is a summary of the reflections I shared at the meeting. As Director of the John Ellerman Foundation, a grant-maker in the arts, social action and environment, I am deeply committed to thinking about and addressing the ways in which power imbalances are showing up in our own work.
Throughout my time in the charity sector, there has been a lot of talk about ‘doing good’ and the ways in which this presents itself in our work. We often take it as read that we are doing good – but are we? Discussions in the sector, especially in the last year or two, about racism, systemic and structural inequalities, power imbalances and our language and framing of issues as often being very deficits focused, suggests that we are perhaps part of the problem too.
I am not suggesting that we don’t stand up for the good that we do, but we will achieve more when we address our issues too. NPC’s Rebalancing Act report offers an approach for sharing, building and wielding power more effectively as funders, by focusing on ourselves, our grantees and applicants and our goals. Focusing on ourselves requires us to understand our own power structures and cultural norms and the impacts these have on our own effectiveness, especially in terms of decision-making. It is only by analysing all that we do, from our endowment through to our grant-making, we can determine who our processes are designed for – us or those we work with – and whether we are challenging ourselves enough to be better at what we do. This will be a long and arduous process that will highlight our own privileges and insecurities. In these conversations, especially on how power is linked to inequality, we will use language we are not used to, language that is ever-evolving and language that we need to educate ourselves on by doing the work of really engaging with this issue and the people with personal experience of it in a way that is non-extractive. At Ellerman, by joining the Resourcing Racial Justice Fund, and by deepening our understanding of social justice issues, primarily through our social action and environmental funding work, these are exactly the kinds of conversations and analysis we are starting to undertake.
Focusing on grantees and applicants and our wider stakeholder networks takes time, trust and effort too. As funders we must listen and empower others to tell us what they really think, without fear of reprimand or negative consequences. We must then act upon what we are hearing and deliver positive change in our organisations.
Focusing on our goals, requires funders to embrace the privilege and power we hold as independent organisations, often with endowments that mean we can think, plan and deliver work over the long-term, so that we can be real advocates and champions of the change-making organisations we fund. We should use our voice to amplify and embed positive and lasting change, and we should be held to account when we act in a way that contradicts the goals we have set out.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of funders have taken steps, like signing up to the #WeStandWithTheSector pledge, launched by London Funders in March, that are resulting in power being well and truly shared in a way that it simply wasn’t before. However, there are risks associated with all of this too. A clear example is ensuring our funding is reaching lived experience led organisations, in particular organisations led by and working with black and minoritised ethnic groups. If we weren’t managing to work with these communities before the pandemic struck, then we need to think carefully about how we might be further marginalising these groups as part of our Covid-19 response efforts. This means scrutinising our ways of working, ethos, values and so on to dismantle systemic inequalities and power imbalances such as these, with the London Community Response Fund, led by London Funders, demonstrating all of this in action!
The changes I have described are needed at different levels of the system. As individuals we need to find time and space to reflect on our personal motivations, goals and privileges, and how they harm and help the work that we do. It is with this knowledge that we can then more effectively support our own organisations, the wider sector and the systems that we are a part of. There are no easy or quick wins.
Last year, in another blog I wrote for A Better Way, I talked about having more questions than answers and I wondered if all we could do really was start small and focus on our own organisations. But I feel very differently now. We are in the midst of a climate and nature emergency, a global pandemic and we continue to live in a society that so clearly oppresses, marginalises and minoritises people who are not part of the status quo. It is for these reasons and more that I feel we must act with urgency and find the answers to the questions that were posed at the Sharing Power roundtable.
By exercising humility, transparency and real ambition I do believe that we will deliver a bold vision on how we as funders can role model effective power sharing with those we work with. Progress will likely be slow though…unless we reach a greater shared understanding and support for the fact that power and privilege are intrinsically linked; power imbalances and inequalities impact those that are already most disadvantaged and marginalised; and that to share power it does mean that some of us will have to give up some of the power we currently hold.
Sufina Ahmad is Director of the John Ellerman Foundation, an independent grant-making foundation supporting charities that make a difference to people, society and the natural world, and has previously worked at the City of London Corporation, the National Lottery Community Fund and City Bridge Trust. Sufina holds trusteeships with Just for Kids Law, We Belong and The Charterhouse.
