Two Years inside Philanthropy
Enablers, challenges and tensions
Before I know it I’m two and a bit years into a funding role with Thirty Percy Foundation. I feel like I’m bursting with learning and a bit overwhelmed about where to start to make sense of it. What to share? Where to do it? What is ok to say from this privileged position in the ecosystem of change?
In the quieter months of winter, before getting carried away with the energy and activity of another year — I’m pausing to bank some of the learning before the memories fade. The things that I have found have been enabling, the challenges that are very real and the tensions I’m experiencing. If I had more time, which I don’t, I would develop this into a mini series to delve into these in more detail for there is more to say for each of these.
My hunch is these might resonate for other individuals wanting to create change in funding contexts. But some of these things are very real dynamics in other organisational and movement settings too.
I’m keen to know if any of this is resonant? Are they things you’re experiencing too? Or do you have thoughts about where to go with some of these things?
ENABLERS
Three things that have been enabling and supportive when thinking about creating change in funding organisation.
Facilitation as an unlock
I came to this work with funders, initially through supporting funder collaboratives and ad hoc facilitation projects. I have now come to see part of my organisational role is about bringing facilitative leadership to the table alongside putting facilitation skills into the heart of the organisation.
Facilitation is often seen as a subtle skill — something that works so seamlessly it’s almost invisible. But within a funding organisation, where power dynamics, collaboration, and the need for new ways of doing things, intersect. Facilitation is not just a skill — it’s an unlock.
At Thirty Percy this shows up in how we hold and design day to day meetings, understanding different perspectives that are part of our work, as a basis of the long term collaborations we’re part of, all the way through to how to redesign funding processes. The funding sprints we’ve been doing have been a great example of what this looks like . It was essential to have someone external come in to support and guide this process. Not only has this enabled £3.75 million to be distributed to individual changemakers over six week bursts- but it was a brilliant way for us as a team to disrupt our own ways of working.
This has been about bringing in others with different facilitation approaches and styles to support the wider vision and ambitions of the organisation. Building a network of longer term collaborators with these skills and exploring ways of strengthening the facilitation practice across the board. Inviting in reflecting and witnessing roles to share what we’re learning and strengthen the support for this undervalued skill.
I don’t think there is such a thing as too much facilitation capacity that you can put into funding contexts.
Role Fluidity
I couldn’t have done this work without working in an organisation that was open to flexing and evolving my role. We often think of roles as set in stone, but in reality a more fluid approach has allowed for the work that needed to be done to happen, while actively recognising the needs I have as a working parent of a newly school age child. Practically that has seen me shifting from a 3 month consultancy arrangement, to a seasonal flexible maternity cover to a fixed, but time bound role. Knowing there was openness and willingness to shift this has been hugely enabling for me personally.
I also believe that my role and value comes from the connections and cross pollinations I make between people, ideas and different parts of the ecosystem we work across. I’ve written about my own polyamours relationship to work and leadership in more detail too and instead of denying this, it has been actively and openly designed for.
I’ve already gone back on my own intentions to do this work with Thirty Percy for two years. But I’m learning it’s ok for you to change your mind. In many ways it’s taken two years to do the groundwork for the work I thought I was there to do. A reminder that things ALWAYS take longer than you think.
Decolonising work as a strategy for how we organise
Being part of a philanthropic organisation that proactively supports women, trans women and women of colour it is necessary to really explore and try and embody what a decolonial organisation can look like. I know this work is crucial, yet making space for it beyond a single session is challenging. I had preconceived ideas what about decolonisation work looked and felt like. But I approached it knowing it was the ‘right’ thing to do, but also with some nervousness, recognising this stemmed from my own insecurities.
In many ways we’ve been fortunate that the team and the board is bought into this — and I recognise that isn’t the context for all. What’s unfolding — and it is early days — is a real surprise. The process of choosing the right partners to work with — was a real eye opener. It has provided a glimpse of what the best of what this small team could do together. Working together in different ways, bringing the skills and leadership that doesn’t always get to be seen to the fore.
From starting this work, we’re gaining more of a shared grounding and language for big topics and micro behaviours of how white supremacy shows up in our culture. We’re identifying the conversations we need to have together to move forward. And it’s being done with real grace, humility and commitment from all involved. It feels like a relief, and that I as an organisational leader don’t have to hold and contain the vast array of experiences alone. The impact is going to go well beyond our understanding of a big issue and rightly into the heart of how we organise and create change. But I’m hopeful (and still a bit anxious) about where this will go over the coming years.
CHALLENGES
It’s not all been easy. There’s been some real challenges to navigate, that’s really tested me to think about what role I need to be playing.
Full leadership immersion
I knew leadership was hard, I’ve worked with enough leaders close enough to understand that. But I wasn’t prepared for the full immersive nature of running an organisation. Waking up to it, the middle of the night worries, thinking about it wherever and whenever you find yourself. Parenting is the only parallel I have — you have to do whatever it takes, whenever it is needed — kinda vibes.
At worst it can feel like an impossible task and many competing priorities, modes and needs. I’ve really had to let go of my old ideas of what a leader is, to trust myself and my way of doing things.It can be lonely — and I’ve had to actively cultivate a supportive network of people and approaches to help me stay sane. But it’s taking time. And I’m still feeling like the work it takes to model the type of leader I want to be is in conflict with the presence I want to give to my family, community and creative flow. It opens up big questions for me about the future state of leadership and without designing in different models and support there risks a huge void / cliff edge of willing leaders.
Under exertion of power
The narrative of funders asserting dominance is often the one that prevails. And yes — there’s still lots of work to shift that dynamic. But there is a lesser spoken one I see playing out too — that is the under exertion of power.
I see that at Thirty Percy — but also for others experimenting with new ways of funding things too. Being too afraid to talk openly and share a different story of experience, a tentativeness that denies and so under exerts the power we wield. Denying the conversations and possibilities or new openings it could enable. And so creates voids and vacuums.
I know this on a personal level too — it’s a shadow of my facilitative leadership style that I can fail to assert my own views and options at points or to take decisive decisions. But it’s ok, and necessary sometimes, to be directive — especially if it comes from a place of listening to multiple perspectives.
At Thirty Percy we’ve heard the message loud and clear that we need to be sharing more about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. Not just the good stuff, but the honest, messy reality too. How we do this at an organisational level is still to be developed…but we’re starting.
Cultivating healthy cultures
Beneath the customary assurances that “everything’s fine” and “I’m good,” lies a simmering energy of people teetering on the edge. The overwhelming sense of burnout prevails all over. The desire and the reality for people to bring their whole selves to work sometimes conflict with the professional role and identity you want to cultivate, especially as a leader. What is appropriate? What is too much and oversharing?
Creating a space for people to be honest, where emotions and feelings can be freely expressed is vital to shift this. Creating cultures that are safe enough for people to share, isn’t a given and takes time and trust. The stigma of admitting this, especially from a funding orgnaisation and place of relative abundance is real.
TENSIONS
While challenges can be worked on there, there are three recurring tensions that I’ve felt omnipresent. They’re things that also hard to know how to voice and talk about, let alone what to do about them.
The Currency of Trust
I pride myself on building trusting and generative relationships. I’m not perfect but I think I can do it quite well and with ease. But adding a funding role to my identity has called that into question.
Now, when someone new reaches out to me, I can plunge into a whirlpool of speculation and introspection. When will the funding ask come? Do people engage with me to seek my true opinion or because of their assumptions about my perceived proximity to money? Not to make a judgement on people doing this — as I know I have done the same thing too. But sitting on the other side, I recognise it’s been quite a corrosive force for me and I think it’s quite an unspoken dynamic on other people that inhabit funders too.
Perhaps in contrast, I come to this work with decades worth of creative and collaborative relationships and a dense network of trust — built over time that I’ve invested in personally. I’ve found myself asking when is it appropriate, and when isn’t it, to draw upon these relationships I’ve so painstakingly built in this newer role? The challenge for me isn’t in leveraging these connections but ensuring they’re engaged ethically and equitably and appropriately. It’s a delicate balance to strike, and I constantly question the fairness of my actions.
So often philanthropic money is used to manufacture trust. It can take years of investment to really foster it, but really money often isn’t the best binding ingredient to cultivate real trust. Isn’t trust the true currency that underpins everything, not money?
Front of Stage Dynamics
I came to this work believing that philanthropy needed to change. And I still believe that. But i’ve seen clearly that much of the real economic power and architecture lies hidden behind the curtain of philanthropy. And I’ve seen this up close through this role — in part from sharing an office with a Family Office (I had no idea they existed before this).
So while charitable foundations become such a focus for those seeking funds to create change — the real directors of the show — decision-making boards, family offices, corporate interests, and legal and finanical advisers — operate unseen, shaping where big money flows and ensuring the economic system and logics remains intact. I’ve explored this dynamic more here.
Grief of grantmaking
And then there’s the grief of all of this. I feel like that’s not really a phrase that we use a lot but really all change work or philanthropy enough. But my working hypothesis is that there are so many foundations built on the foundations of unprocessed grief — be that of people or guilt of the harm that generated the wealth.
So money then becomes a proxy for how we transfer that grief between people and systems. Martin Prechtel writes in The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise
“Money then is loss, not gain. Money is deferred grief held in a hard form transferable for all the goods and things we pillage from the one half of earth with which we have been left. Business with money then is a war deferred with which people hoping to buy happiness of maintain a status of wealth find themselves burdened with unheard satires and inherited grief”
“So wealth is deferred grief piled up. Wealth’s money, then, must be spent on restoring life”
We must pair our philanthropic and change work with grief work if we want true transformation. I’ve written more on this — but it’s still feeling too edgy to share….
CLOSING THOUGHTS
The need for reflective practice
All of this is just scratching the surface of the rich learning gained from the experience of working in a funding organisation. There is more to say and all the while I feel a whole host of things in doing so. It feels self absorbent sharing and at the same time, I know I am being true to my intentions of playing this role to be sharing generously and honestly. It feels like a small part of the accountability needed of this privileged position to share this more widely.
If nothing else, I hope this can support others experimenting and agitating in foundations and open up and share some of the challenges and realities of what this takes.
From a process perspective — I’ve found writing to be a really supportive practice in helping me to process and make sense of this experience and stay grounded in very overwhelming times. I’ve experienced the transformative power of writing, so in Nov this year — I’ll be co-hosting a space for fellow funder changemakers who want space to share and capture their insights, learning and stories too.
