A Funding Utopia: what’s yours?
A Funding Utopia is a series of blogs and events that create a space to explore big, transformative ideas for UK grant funding and we’d like to invite you to share your vision for a radically different and better system.
Radical progress and change feels ever so very possible at the moment in UK grant funding. There’s an honesty, openness and ambition amongst many of the big Trusts and Foundations and several government departments. There is a different generation of leaders, challenging norms, pushing harder than ever before. There are groups and networks coming together all over the place to learn faster, test new ideas.
There is progress all over the place. 360 Giving is building a shared picture of who, where and what is being funded that is directly affecting funding strategy and decisions. Jerwood Arts have handed over a good chunk of power to artists to identify talent and make decisions and The Edge Fund has established a successful collective funding decision model. DFID embraced cash transfers, against significant opposition, and it seems to be working. Lankelly Chase has doubled down on the difficult task of a systems change approach and we’re all learning faster as a result. The likes of Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity, Health Foundation and Unltd are turning reporting on its head. The Education Endowment Foundation and Raspberry Pi Foundation both inspiringly frank and open about what is working and what isn’t. Lloyds Bank Foundation is taking a genuinely grantee-centred approach to the design and ongoing improvement of their grants plus support.
But, this isn’t an ode to grant funders or a vote for the status quo. We’re only at the start of rebuilding a system that is predominantly opaque, disconnected, idiosyncratic and out of date; of clearing a landscape littered with barriers between organisations all working to the same ends, with and for the same people and communities; of dismantling mind boggling systemic inefficiencies. At a time when these shared financial resources are more precious than ever, this system must be working at its very best and it clearly is not.
These big questions can only be addressed through open dialogue and genuine partnership. In most of the examples of innovation listed above, progress has been possible because of far greater equality in the roles and responsibilities of funders, social organisations and people and communities themselves. So this is designed as a constructive conversation and a shared space, removing, as much as possible, the prevailing sense of them and us, exploring and building features of a better future, rather than just railing at current flaws.
Through a stream of pieces, from a wide range of contributors, we hope to build on, challenge and add energy and focus to the abundance of efforts to improve and change the UK grant funding system. Each of these contributions will describe their version of A Funding Utopia, via specific features of that ideal landscape or its wider principles and structures.
To contribute, get in touch.
Contributions and events are being convened by Tayo Medupin, Stephen Bediako, Fancy Sinantha and Nick Stanhope.
