Develop longer term, more open partnerships
Allow grantees freedom to experiment and trust them to get on with it
A Lankelly Chase Legacy Interview. Hosted by Generative Journalism Alliance
Katharine, Can you share a bit about what your relationship has been with Lankelly Chase?
I was the first chief executive of an organisation called Agenda, which was focused on women and girls facing multiple disadvantage. It was established by Lankelly Chase and a number of other funders who had come together as part of the Corston Independent Funders’ Coalition, who were concerned about women in the justice system, women in prison.
They were called Corston because there had been a big report done by Baroness Corston looking at women in the justice system. So this group of funders had come together to see how they could collaborate and try to advance parts of that agenda.
That culminated in them deciding that they wanted to establish an alliance. This was in 2015. I was recruited to lead and set up that alliance.
Lankelly Chase were one of the core funders of that, and also one of the core architects.
So it was an alliance, to start with, of funders?
They’re two slightly separate things. There was the Corston Independent Funders’ Coalition who had come together with an interest in this particular agenda.
Then there was a subgroup of those funders who wanted to be more active in this space in a new initiative, and that there was space for a new initiative.
That subgroup included Lankelly, Barrow Cadbury Trust, and Pilgrim Trust who were the most actively involved. So it was just the three of them.
They’d done a lot of work to map the landscape and establish whether there was space for a new entity and what that might look like. There was a lot of bringing the sector together and speaking to a really wide range of stakeholders. They engaged people working on different elements of women in the justice system to help them develop the thinking around what became Agenda, leading up to 2015. Then in 2015, I was recruited.
When I was recruited, I had a steering group on which Lankelly Chase was, along with a couple of other funders and people involved in the justice system, and chaired by a woman called Baroness Lola Young.
I worked closely with Lankelly to develop what something might look like, and work out what space there was and where we could have the most impact.
That was quite an iterative process.
They were taking a risk on funding something new and something in the influence and policy space, rather than the delivery space.
Although there is growing awareness of the importance of systems change work and policy influence, it is still much harder to fund than direct delivery to marginalised groups or to people who need extra support.
Whilst more funders understand that now, Lankelly has always got that charity is not just about a warm blanket and a cup of tea. It’s also about understanding the systemic issues that have led to inequality and disadvantage. Trying to tackle those is as important as being there to support the people who are affected by those inequalities. So I think that’s something. They were funding something that was untested, was new, and was not without controversy because others working in the sector had varying views about whether something was needed, and what that something should look like.
There was a lot of lively debate and discussion in the run up to Agenda being established, and Lankelly were prepared, along with the other funders, to take a bit of a risk in that space and to put resources into establishing something that was new and not fully formed.
That evolved, I would say, over the next few years. Lankelly are a fairly unconventional funder in that they allow grantees a lot of freedom to experiment, if you align with their values and their purpose. They’ll have long-term partnerships with people, which, again, a lot of funders don’t do. Lankelly works with you, but also trusts you to determine how those resources are best deployed.
A lot of funders take different approaches and are far more prescriptive about not just outcomes, but activities. They want things that are new, but also want things that are proven. That can be quite challenging.
My experiences of Lankelly were that they were much more open to risk and open to experimentation, and saw the value of long-term unrestricted funding. And fewer, deeper partnerships with organisations they believe are aligned with their purpose.
So a couple of things there. It sounds like the group was very careful not to step on toes or do work again that someone else was doing. It sounds like you took time to find a situation in the ecology in which to add something rather than crowd out or cross over with other things and that there was determination to do thinking, agenda shaping, and system change.
Yeah, so I didn’t know them before that really well. I knew of them, but hadn’t worked closely with them. From around 2015 there was a real focus on systems change, policy and influence, policy and practice. They were interested in systems change at different levels.
Place-based systems change. National systems change. Policy influence. The different levers to achieve change.
They recognised the complexity of systems thinking and were happy to sit with that, which, again, is fairly unusual. For funders to take that approach they have to recognise that you need to try things out, that you need to really understand systems, that change isn’t going to happen quickly or overnight, but that the change you do create is then more deeply embedded.
They were as interested in the questions and the conversation as in the answers. They created a lot of space for that, and also played a role as thought leaders.
Where they saw things they needed to tackle, they would take a lead in doing that, whether it was through conversations, collaboration, or establishing something new.
They were definitely leaders, and took a much more active role, and almost a bit think-tanky in parts of what they did. They did quite a lot of work around trying to define women experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage, which was the issue we’re working on in Agenda, how you define that, and what it means. That sounds straightforward but it really isn’t when you get into it.
They commissioned research directly. They would bring thinkers together to work through these questions, and to do that in quite a deep way. So, while they were thought leaders, they also created the space for others to collaborate and work through some of these complex issues and complex discussions.
What was made possible through the relationship with Lankelly Chase that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise?
If Lankelly and the other funders hadn’t been involved in the work of Agenda, then there wouldn’t have been Agenda.
In time, we established it as an independent charity. And it’s still going and still playing a key role in shaping debate around some of these issues.
They helped create that space, which wasn’t really there before, to talk about women who were in contact with the justice system, but more broadly, to move it away from just that justice lens, to talk about women who are experiencing multiple forms of disadvantage who could be in touch with the criminal justice system, but could also be in touch with other systems and structures.
They played a key role in creating that organisation, but also in creating that space and helping that debate move along. That had an impact in a whole range of ways, from shaping government policy to getting the government to have a focus on women’s mental health.
We got the government to establish a women’s mental health task force. I was invited to co-chair that with the minister.
Women and mental health wasn’t really being talked about at all at the time.
We made sure that where other policy developments were happening, whether they were around the government’s drugs strategy, or looking at the experiences of black and minoritized ethnic groups within the criminal justice system.
We played a role in making sure that women from those groups were thought about particularly as well. There was establishing that as an important area of focus and making sure that others were paying attention as well, including at the government.
Lankelly played a key role in that space, both in their funding but also in their thought leadership.
They both played a role as conveners, bringing others together, but also were very open to collaboration, whether that was with grantees or fellow funders. That’s really powerful, and it’s difficult to do well because there’s power dynamics that sit under that between funders and grantees. That’s something that they were really mindful of.
Can you say more about that and how it was that they were mindful of it? Do you have a sense for learning or insights into that?
Look, it’s really difficult, right? There are power dynamics there. If someone’s a funder and someone’s a funding recipient, there’s an obvious power dynamic. They were mindful in how they approached those relationships and how they valued the voices of their grantees. That was really important.
They were genuinely open to discussion and learning. They curated spaces where you could have difficult conversations. There were some really difficult conversations. They curated a space where people felt they could express their views, and their voices.
I don’t think you will ever be able to remove that power dynamic. They were mindful about navigating it, and it still existed. I think that will always be the case.
I think it’s naive to assume that there won’t be a power dynamic there when someone’s got the purse strings and someone needs the purse to open. The best funders can do is be really, really mindful of how they interact with their grantees, and how their questions or requests will land because of those power dynamics.
Lankelly did that really well.
In your time and journey with Lankelly, what meaning was made for you through that experience?
Oh, that’s a big question. What meaning was made for me? I valued the space they created to think more deeply about things. They certainly allowed us to explore the way systems impact women experiencing multiple disadvantage at a much deeper level than we would have otherwise.
I guess I would say that they’re really intellectual as a funder, which, again, is fairly unusual.
We definitely explored different issues, which their support, leadership, research, and their commissioned help, helped us understand better.
But I guess the takeaway was allowing organisations the space to do some of that thinking on their own, or collectively.
They were so willing to take risks. Their collaborations and partnerships were genuine. They weren’t massively prescriptive as a funder, which is still fairly unusual.
They were really progressive in how they thought about things and still are.
What would you like to see from other resource holders, in the field and in the future? What does the resource holder of the future look like?
The main thing is about trusting your grantees. Trust that they know what they’re doing.
I’m not saying that’s unconditional trust. Of course, it needs to be based on something. But, when you’re operating in a shifting landscape in difficult circumstances, you need to be able to respond. You need to be able to try new things. You need to be able to allocate your resources in a way that makes sense, and that’s more challenging when there are real constraints on how you can spend funding.
There’s something about once you’ve established that kind of relationship with grantees and believe in what they’re doing, then trusting them to know how to get on with it and not being too prescriptive.
Another thing is the long-term nature of funding relationships. It’s so difficult as a charity, when you’re having every year to find the money, again, to just carry on doing what you’re doing. It takes a huge amount of time and resources.
Long term funding relationships are like gold dust. Where you know you can rely on that, it allows you to plan and to be more innovative and to do things differently. Without that certainty, it’s really challenging.
What might you say is the best thing that could possibly happen next?
There are a lot of challenging things happening. There are a lot more demands on charitable trusts and foundations in the UK at the moment. That is for a whole range of reasons, like statutory contracts being worth less, being harder to make work, post-economic downturn, and other funding streams drying up.
Trusts and foundations are responding to post-COVID. In COVID, a lot of them made extra funding available. Post–COVID some of them are pausing grant giving while they have a rethink about their strategy.
Some of them are closing applications earlier because they’re so overwhelmed by the number of applications they’re receiving.
Others are winding down or reallocating their funds.
If that happens at scale where lots and lots of funders are doing that, then where do we get the funding for what we do? Where does civil society turn if lots of funders decide to spend out or pause their grant giving? It becomes a massive, growing problem.
Recognising that broader context and that they’re part of an ecosystem is important, and developing longer term, more open partnerships with more freedom for grantees to be able to deliver in the way that they need.
That’s the direction in which I’d be keen to see philanthropy continue to move.
Hosted and edited by Peter Pula
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