The audacious Lankelly Chase

What was once audacious ought now to be the norm

 

 

By the Generative Journalism Alliance

 

 

The seeds of audacity have been unfurling at Lankelly Chase for many years. 

 

What was once an eclectic approach to grant giving, supporting everything from glass making to up-and-coming pianists to protecting alms houses and church roofs, began to shift. 

 

Over the decades, Lankelly Chase, guided by a variety of trustees, leaders, advisors and grantees, evolved into an organisation drawn to thinking about complex social questions and coming to grips with the role it could play and how to play it. The foundation began breaking with convention and eventually came to be known by those close to it as a ‘radical’ funder.

 

Lankelly was willing to confront and openly discuss the dynamics of power and wealth. (French, Dabbs, Akhtar) This strand can be found woven through many parts of the Lankelly story, almost as an animating impulse, sometimes nearly imperceptible, and at other times showing up in the strangest of ways.

 

Not only was Lankelly Chase willing to take a good hard look at what was happening in society, to commit to a course of action, focus its energies and resources, and grow its willingness to take risks, experiment, and break the mould. The organisation was willing to wade into new and emerging conversations – although our sources told us that at times it became too think-tanky and veered too much in the direction of the academic and the esoteric. 

 

While it never stopped being a thinking organisation, it did make choices that mattered on the ground. That meant creating strategic coherence around, for example, ‘severe and multiple disadvantage’, and ‘systems behaviours’. In the process, Lankelly left convention farther and farther behind and became increasingly audacious.

 

The foundation was willing to think things through, to have a look at what gaps there were in the system and to partner with other resource holders to create something new to fill in that gap, even if there was resistance. (Sack-Jones. Batchelor) This led, for example, to the establishment of Agenda, which continues to this day to advocate for and with women in contact with the system, to challenge and shift established programmes, cut new paths, and influence and shape government policy.

 

Funding those nobody else would fund

 

Lankelly was willing to fund those who were way out in front, doing ‘third horizon’ work – unprovable, unfashionable, courageous, pioneering, beyond convention and the current system. People need stability to do good work. (Connery) Numerous sources told us that Lankelly had the audacity to believe in them, without assurances that things would work out, and back that belief with resources. (Kidd, Wright, Myrie and Wilkes) That stability made all the difference in the world.

 

Core funding

 

Lankelly was willing to resource core funding. This is not the norm and is even shunned by many philanthropic organisations. Core funding enabled grant-receiving organisations to stand strong and focus on their core intentions. Too often, chasing the money means organisations suffer mission drift or have to hold too many contradictions between their earnest aims and the boxes they need to tick to secure the necessary funds. 

 

We heard several times how core funding enabled organisations to no longer have one foot in the boat and one on the wharf, and so find themselves able to focus on their chosen task and contribution. (Potts, Kidd)

 

This core funding also enabled grant recipients, with Lankelly’s backing and relational support, to leverage in funds from other resource holders. (Gul)

 

Long term funding

 

The lack of stable, long-term funding creates precarity for organisations doing much-needed and pioneering work which few others are prepared to do. It also generates uncertainty for those who work in such organisations. Short-term funding can also mean that innovative projects do not have the time needed to take root. As a result, such projects can seem to be only fits and starts, interesting but not effective, and so not worth funding. 

 

Lankelly was willing to not only fund audacious initiatives but to do so over periods of many years. We heard stories about how core funding and long term funding eventually enabled grassroots organisations to fundamentally shift the power dynamic in communities. (Fell. D’Souza. Ssali) With the staying power of both core and long-term funding, and Lankelly standing behind them, community organisations were able to prefigure a different way, devolving decision making, shaping alliances, and becoming muscular enough to push back. 

 

Doing innovative work takes time, and without both core and long-term funding, it never has a chance. Lankelly was not only willing to take those so-called risks – this kind of support over the long term delivered proof that these ‘radical’ practices actually work.

 

Relational funding

 

We also heard compelling stories about how Lankelly centred relationships as a practice for grant decisions and delivery.

 

Rather than simply putting out the call for applications, processing paper decisions, and granting to some and not to others on the basis of this relatively reductive approach, Lankelly personnel would ‘follow the energy’ into relationship.

 

We heard many stories of organic, seemingly chance meetings which led to sometimes years-long conversations, invitations, and getting a feel for one another. We also heard stories in which deliberate effort was made over time to develop relationships with fund recipients slowly, with smaller grants, and to eventually develop those relationships both with Lankelly, but also amongst grant recipients, who were then invited into the process of deciding, amongst themselves, how best to distribute increasing amounts of money. 

 

Conscious of the possibility of a cliquishness developing, those involved, while relying on tried and tested relationships, endeavoured to always expand the circle, inviting new people and organisations in. There are many possible criticisms of this approach, but they can be mitigated by good practice, and Lankelly made space for those practices to form and develop. 

 

Accountability by relationship, not by report

 

When it came to ensuring funds granted were put to good use, Lankelly did so by relationship rather than report. Lankelly personnel stayed involved with grant recipients as they went about their work over time. They were involved, not to intervene or direct, but as learning partners willing to walk alongside.

 

Lankelly personnel developed trust-based relationships with grant recipients because they were involved. In this way, not only did accountability take on a very different tone by being relationship centred, it also meant Lankelly personnel were better informed about realities on the ground, what was being learned, and tried, in earnest. Lankelly personnel knew that it was the people closest to a situation who knew best what might be done to change things for the better. (D’Souza, Ssali, Howard) Evaluation could be done developmentally, rather than by prescriptive, power-over means. 

 

This is how it worked when it worked at its best. 

 

We also heard from some former trustees that at times they felt out of touch with grant recipients and their work, and wished that wasn’t the case. Grant recipients reported that at times Lankelly as an institution could also make decisions, or change direction, in ways disconnected from, and very disruptive to work, on the ground.

 

Audacity and the potential for mixed messages

 

Several sources told us that the audacity to try new things created mixed messages and mixed practices. Breaking old patterns is no easy task. They tend to reappear when least expected and sometimes unbeknownst to those who are unconsciously channeling them. 

 

The trick for those of us who wish to learn from the Lankelly experience will be to parse out what gifts might be gotten by attending to what worked, and to not conflate the various strands and strains in the story.

 

The seeds of change were planted and nurtured with the support of core, long-term, and relational funding. Even where it was done sporadically, new skills were learned and capacity built. Where it was done consistently and over time, as it was in Greater Manchester, power dynamics were changed. (Fell, D’Souza, Ssali) 

 

Learning as outcome

 

Lankelly was not only actively supportive of each local initiative and community learning as it went, and valorised that learning as a core and legitimate form of outcome and result, it was also willing to go there itself. Lankelly waded into spaces and practices about which it knew very little, but knew it must come to know. 

 

While the structures were not always there to integrate the learning being generated, the attitude and appetite were. Lankelly led by being willing to learn itself. (Connery, Atcheson, Garrill) 

 

High tolerance for ambiguity

 

Lankelly adopted a very high tolerance for ambiguity. This proved to be disconcerting for many, but it might be argued that philanthropic organisations are uniquely placed to hold this space in systems that clearly must become more adaptive. Well resourced and capable of sitting with distant time horizons and systems views, trusts and foundations with the kind of savvy, sense of adventure, and willingness to learn that Lankelly personnel exhibited are an essential function in this time of necessary transition. (Pippard)

 

It may be the case that something to learn from this is that while think-tanky and ivory-tower time horizons may very well be critically important, it is not necessary for everyone in adjacent works to be directly involved. (Jones) Perhaps an appropriate  approach would be to inform and invite, but not expect, people to join in conversations at that level. 

 

An art for philanthropic organisations to hone is that of knowing how to pot certain activities in right relationship with one another. Some spaces need known and well worn practices combined with highly localised circumstances and players. Practice stability has a grounding and cohering capacity for local works, especially those in crisis.

 

In the meantime, other environments where trust, familiarity, and relationships are well developed, the introduction and adaptation of new and evolutionary practices makes sense. A wise philanthropic funder, with a think-tank, system-view, and distant-time-horizon stance, can learn how to engage productively, rather than disruptively, with highly localised and particularised initiatives and efforts. 

 

We heard of cases where this was very well done, and others where it wasn’t.

 

There can be trouble when ‘folks at the top’, accidentally or otherwise, ripple out their own experiences into the whole system. Done deliberately and with care, however, philanthropic organisations can fulfill a core, future-sensing, connecting, and capacity-building function to complement what is happening on the ground.

 

What if a new norm is now possible?

 

Without Lankelly’s audacity in trying to do things differently, we would not have our proofs. With those in hand, there is little good reason for others to not pick up where Lankelly left off and build a preferred future. 

 

What if what was once audacious could now be the norm?