Over the years we made various attempts to reduce the distance between ‘the funds’ and ‘the work’.

We worked to develop open and trusting relationships with grantees and to minimise the impact of the most commonly criticised philanthropic bureaucracies, particularly around application processes and reporting.

We generally tried to provide the kind of trust-based, flexible, core support which the sector frequently demands.

We tried to build our knowledge, expertise and relationships in the fields we were working in, and recruited people who already had these things. We were actively involved in lots of the work ‘on the ground’ rather than just funding it from afar.

We also tried to subvert what it means to be, or to act like, ‘a funder’. We dispersed and devolved power which is normally concentrated at Board and Grants Committee levels.

Good things were enabled by all of this, but we retained and felt a sense of dissonance and contradiction. Sometimes whatever we did felt wrong – or at least not quite right.

Over time we were exposed to challenge, and to new thinking about what resourcing arrangements could look like. We realised that alternatives to the traditional philanthropic model were possible.